


Happiness Writes White

by Littorella



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: AI and Human/machine interaction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assisted Suicide Discussion, Drama & Romance, Ethical Dilemmas, Eventual Happy Ending, Existential Angst, Hospitals, M/M, Mutual Pining, Philosophy, Slow Burn, Startups and tech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littorella/pseuds/Littorella
Summary: Yuuri falls asleep after his first day in St. Petersburg and wakes up in a strange hospital room. To his dismay, the last year of skating has all been a dream simulation designed to wake him from a long coma. Viktor Nikiforov is, in fact, not a figure skater at all, but the creator of the program, and this real world Viktor is nothing like the one he knows.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 178
Kudos: 299





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a conversation about technology, choice, and what it means to really be alive. Medicine and assisted suicide are central concepts, but mostly in discussion; there's nothing overly graphic. Proceed at your own caution.
> 
> All art for this story is also drawn by me. Please do not repost.

The first thing Yuuri noticed about St. Petersburg was the wash of pastel flooding every edge and streaking into the corner of his vision during the ride from the airport. His eyes traced back and forth on their stone facades as he leaned his head against the taxi window. Old mixed with new, ornate stone next to gold and glass. It was so different compared to the places he’d been before.

The second thing Yuuri noticed was how Viktor came alive in his home. His gestures expanding an extra exaggerated inch; his smile widening at the turn to every familiar street corner or object he’d forgotten he longed for. Viktor’s wistful nostalgia caused him to travel backwards, forwards, around in circles, pulling Yuuri along.

“Ah, sorry for the dusty, dead flowers. I will throw them out tomorrow,” he’d rushed to explain away the drooping pink roses on the coffee table when they first entered the apartment, “My father used to give my mother flowers, and she always kept them long after they’d died. I guess I have learned the same bad habit.”

The way he appended every little thing with a bit more about him caused a twinge in Yuuri’s heart, an ache powered by more than mere memory revealed.

“And here is where I keep the mugs. You have to stack them when you put them away because I keep collecting them and there are too many to really fit..I really should get rid of some.”

Yuuri nodded and let him continue rattling on his stream-of-consciousness stories. He latched onto every word, memorizing their significance. It was like a feast for his tired mind. As he let himself travel round and round memories and old corners with Viktor, he felt himself picking up pieces of Viktor greedily, going through the details of where he called home. Where he knew without question he was loved.

When Viktor took his luggage to the bedroom and set it down in front of the closet, he gave Yuuri a worried look. “I hope I cleared enough space for you,” he muttered with a finger held to his lips.

Hands heavy from the fatigue of travel and runaway time, Yuuri wrapped his arms around Viktor and replied, “I’m sure it is. Thank you.”

He placed a delicate kiss on Viktor’s cheek and set his head on broader shoulders. “I’m tired, Viktor. Let’s do the rest later. I want to take a nap.”

They stayed stationary for a moment, savoring the weight of each other in embrace, before he pulled Viktor by the hand toward the bed and collapsing down. Viktor laughed at the way Yuuri fell ungracefully on top of the covers. “No outside clothes in bed,” he warned affectionately.

Grumbling something incoherent, Yuuri squirmed up the bed and took off his glasses but stubbornly refused to shed any clothes. He threw an arm over his eyes and rolled to his side.

“You know how I feel about outside clothes in bed,” he heard Viktor protest again, tugging at the sleeves of his sweater. 

“But I’m on top of the covers,” Yuuri mumbled, shifting his arm so he could see the blurry shapes of his partner’s face. “And I was wearing my coat the whole time, I swear. It’s as clean as house clothes.”

Viktor gave him a playful pout and laid down next to him, coming to clearer view inches from his face. He brushed hair out of Yuuri’s eyes and whispered, “Ok, Yuuri, but just this once. Only because it’s your first day, and I am feeling generous.”

They both knew ‘only just this once’ would likely turn into every time. 

“Will you wake me up in an hour? I don’t want to end up awake all night.”

“Of course, my Yuuri.”

Makkachin took the opportunity to jump on the bed behind Yuuri and proceeded to settle in against his back, pushing him to inch forward closer to Viktor. He didn’t mind, but it was getting awfully crowded. Makkachin was by no means a small dog.

“Viktor, you need to get a bigger bed. How can we fit when the dog takes up half of it?”

A content smile spread across Viktor’s face as he looked into Yuuri’s eyes, tracing the dark line of his lashes. His eyes were waning crescents as the smile spread. 

“What is so funny?” Yuuri placed his own hand over the one on his cheek.

“Nothing,” Viktor admitted, turning his gaze inward under a heavy-lidded smile, “I’m just so happy you’re here with me.”

The words thumped in Yuuri’s ears like thunder. He was happy too, tentative and worried at once, but happy all the same. He bit his lip to avoid breaking out into a ridiculous grin. 

“I’m glad too.”

Viktor flicked his eyes upward to meet Yuuri’s and asked, “Are you ready for the rest of your life?”

It seemed like such an odd question at a time like this.  _ Are you ready? _

Was he? It seemed to float around the room. Unlike all the places he’d move on his own, this time he was anxious for the next day in anticipation rather than dread. The way the city smelled, the way it sounded so foreign, but he couldn’t wait to learn it all with Viktor by his side.

Are you ready, the air seemed to ask him again.

Wordlessly, Yuuri grasped Viktor’s hand and set it between them. He placed a small kiss where the ring sat gleaming as his answer. 

  
  


***

  
  


As his eyelids grew heavy, and he slipped into sleep, Yuuri had the strangest dream.

He stood by the sea in Hatsetsu, the warm ocean lapping at his bare feet, blue as Viktor’s eyes. Each time the tide came in, he felt a pressure in chest build from something inside. It was like a long creature was swimming around in his chest, causing him to wheeze at odd intervals.

Clutching his chest, he coughed and felt it move inside, fighting some rhythm his lungs were trying to impose. The discomfort built unbearably until he felt to his hands and knees and coughed down into the sand.

The creature was moving up his throat now and he felt his gag reflex engage as it tried to escape. He coughed again and again until a giant fish poured from his mouth, flopping down into the sand beneath. The fish was a mackerel, patterned blue and gray. It slapped its tail against the wet sand and turned to look at Yuuri.

“Are you ready for the rest of your life?” it suddenly opened its mouth and asked.

Bewildered, Yuuri clutched at his sore throat and just stared at the fish.

“Are you ready?” the mackerel asked again, more insistently this time.

Yuuri squinted down at the fish. How odd it was that a fish was asking him the same question Viktor had.

“Yes?” he finally answered.

The fish closed its mouth and flopped about for a moment before the incoming tide swept it out to sea. 

Yuuri laid down on the sand and breathed out a long sigh. His bones felt brittle and his limbs weak. The water came in with increasingly set periodicity, hissing and calling to the beat of his heart. It was strange, he noticed for the first time, the ocean didn’t smell like salt and sun. The scent that surrounded him was more chemical in nature, sterile and metallic.

He cracked an eye open and noticed the sky was not quite what he’d expected either. No clouds drifted by, no seagulls flying overhead, the open air was an endless stretch of gray light.

Someone called in the distance.

Closing his eyes to try and listen, Yuuri could make out the faraway sound of a woman’s voice. The accented voice ebbed and flowed, coming louder and distorted each time.

“Mr. Katsuki?”

  
  


***

  
  


Yuuri woke with a start.

Breath gasping and eyes wild.

Air pumping into his lungs burned as it entered. Burning, burning, dry and blistering. The world flooded his vision in blinding intensity like staring into the sun. Mechanical noises and electronic outputs overwhelmed his ears with their rhythmic screams. So bright and so sudden was the assault on his senses that Yuuri felt tears falling from his eyes. He desperately wanted to cover his eyes and ears to shut it all out, but his arms had turned to water, pooling uselessly beside him.

“Mr. Katsuki?” That voice again, in sharp relief this time.

He wheezed a breath and tried to focus his eyes at its source.

“You’re alright, Mr. Katsuki. Breathe,” she calmly reassured. Yuuri felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his head to follow it to its owner, but his head felt like a boulder that was too heavy for his neck to hold up.

“There, don’t try to move. You were fighting the vent.”

Another few ragged breaths. 

“Just stay still and breathe,” the woman motioned to herself and said in slow words, “Follow me. Inhale--one two three. Exhale. Yes, you have it.”

With each breathe, the room settled a bit and Yuuri could start to process. Color was the first thing he could focus on and so he stared at her hair. It shone like fine copper wire, tightly coiled in a bun at the base of her neck. As he calmed further, Yuuri started to notice her clothes, green and pressed neatly, a uniform. What did they call these? He’d seen them before. 

Scrubs, his mind supplied, the kind they wore in hospitals.

Hospitals? His eyes darted to the ID tag dangling from her breast pocket and noted that the text under her tiny photo was in illegible cyrillic. So he was still in St. Petersburg. What a relief.

“Mr. Katsuki, today is March 20, 2016. This is hospital number 4 in Sochi. You were in a very serious accident. But do not worry, you are fine now. I am Oksana, I am a nurse, and everything will be alright.”

He must be misunderstanding her heavily accented english. Her words were a jumble of nonsense rattling in his head.

_ Today is March 20, 2016.  _ No, Today is January 4, 2017. They just celebrated the new year. The date printed on his plane ticket was still clear in his mind. 

_ This is hospital number 4 in Sochi.  _ He hadn’t been in Sochi since the grand prix last year. He was in St. Petersburg. 

_ You were in a serious accident.  _ He’d never been in an accident in his life. It seemed unlikely to not have any recollection of a “serious” accident.

_ But do not worry, you are fine now. _ He most definitely did not feel fine. He could not understand--maybe he’d hit his head? Was this what concussions were like?

_ I am Oksana, I am a nurse.  _

Where is Viktor?

_ Everything will be alright. _

It certainly didn’t feel alright.


	2. Chapter 2

Yuuri laid in the hospital bed motionless for what seemed to be days but were mere hours. The nurses bustled around, changing his bedding, the catheters and leads which piped mysterious fluids in and out of his body. He found there was a port on his chest, an alien metal thing that made him feel like a cyborg being grown in a vat of synthetic soup. 

They were removing it tomorrow. At least there was something to look forward to.

The staff served him a sludge like porridge early in the morning, but he didn’t have the stomach to eat any. Disgusted and still in a haze, he politely declined and settled in to listen to the orchestrated music of the machines around him. Oksana returned periodically and always repeated the same things.

_ You were in a serious accident. It’s common to be confused after a brain injury. _

_ You have been in a coma. _

He struggled to find coherent words to express himself amidst this strange discovery. On top of it all, his body was a foreign shell, heavy to wear and inconvenient to operate. It was as if he had been given an android to test and told it was top of the line, perfect, just the same as a normal human, but it was failing every test. His tongue felt strange, smooth like wax. His eyes were always dry. He had trouble focusing on people’s faces.

When had Sochi been again? If felt like an awfully long time ago, a lifetime he could even say. He danced with Viktor there.

“Where is Viktor?” he asked suddenly when he’d finally gotten his voice to work properly. Was Viktor okay? If he was in the hospital, was Viktor hurt? Panic started to rise in his chest.

“Where is Viktor?!”

Oksana put her hand on Yuuri’s shoulder again to settle him when she noticed his distress. She injected something into his IV line. “Don’t worry, Mr. Katsuki, he will be here soon. You have just woken up a bit early. It is five in the morning right now. I have called Dr. Nikiforov to let him know you were waking. He is on the first flight here. He will explain everything.”

Doctor? Yuuri squinted in confusion. Perhaps his hearing still wasn’t operational.

“Can I call him?”

The nurse tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and smiled. “No, Mr. Katsuki. He is on the airplane. He will be here soon.”

“I don’t understand.” Yuuri said slowly, letting the words settle in his ears from within.

“It is natural to be confused. You were in a serious accident. Your family has been informed you are alright,” she repeated like a recording. The machines monitoring his sub-standard android body beeped and groaned to the beat of her voice.

A bitter drowsiness overtook Yuuri and he could only nod weakly before sinking into the bed. It felt almost like sinking into a lovely, soft, padded coffin.

  
  


***

  
  


It was around half past eleven when Viktor arrived at the hospital, disheveled and tired. From the data and the nurses’ assessments he’d expected it to take Yuuri Katsuki another five days to wake up. He barely acknowledged the hospital staff as he hurried in, cigarette still lit and dropping ash everywhere. A nurse scowled at him and sternly pointed to the no smoking sign.

He rolled his eyes and shuffled back out into the cold to finish.

Savoring the rush of nicotine calming his nerves, he glanced back at the hospital doors.

Patient number 10. He’d finally made it to double digits. Ten human beings woken up from hopeless comas. Ten whole sons and daughters whose families thought they’d be vegetative forever. Maybe they’ll give him a proper, fully funded trial after this.

It’d taken three years to get here, far longer than he’d expected. Who knew the mind was a difficult creature to manage, only motivated by the presence of another human mind.

Once he stubbed the filter out, he headed back in and put his hands together in mock prayer to apologize to the nurse. Viktor beamed a fake smile and turned on the charm he used when asking for money from investors.

She merely glared at him and said nothing.

  
  


***

  
  


When Yuuri first noticed Viktor walk in, he felt an overwhelming sense of relief. All was ok, after all. Viktor was ok.

He was thinner, more gaunt than he’d been. His silvery hair was unkempt and overly long, brushing past his cheek. Had he been so worried that he didn’t take care of himself? Yuuri’s chest swam with concern. He reached a hand out for his Viktor, beckoning him to come close. 

However, when Viktor approached the bed, Yuuri stiffened and noticed something was terribly wrong. Viktor smelled of cigarettes. His presence was waxy and stiff, not like the radiant and joyful person he was. He wore a fraying button-down shirt and ill fitting jeans he would never be caught dead in. And worst of all, when he sat down beside the bed, he did not smile. The man before him held his face in a polite, but cold expression. It sent a jolt of shivers down his spine. Yuuri immediately retracted his hand.

“Good to see you are awake, Yuuri. I am Dr. Viktor Nikiforov. I believe you know a version of me.”

Viktor extended a hand.

Yuuri stared at his hand and then his face. His crisp blue eyes were cold and austere. This doppelganger was not Viktor. This was some shoddy imitation. Suddenly, he could parse the rest of what Oksana had droned on repeatedly, the parts that were not yet translating into sense. Like strange jigsaw pieces, they fell together in unexpected ways.

_ You have been dreaming in a program Dr. Nikiforov created. _

_ You know him as a character in the program designed to wake you from your coma. Your experiences were all in a simulation. _

_ You are now awake. _

“Yuuri, it is alright to feel shocked. I am here to answer any questions you may have,” the man explained with sterile precision.

His breathing became shallow and labored. The room began to spin. This couldn’t be happening. His entire year was a lie, going to the GPF, training with Viktor as his coach, falling in love, moving to St. Petersburg. None of it was real, all just a dream within a machine program. Viktor looked incredibly uncomfortable to be in the room.

“Ah Yuuri, you are experiencing a panic attack. You need to breathe. Tell me what you see in this room, name some things to me,” Viktor, no--Dr. Nikiforov, said as he placed a steady hand on Yuuri’s shoulder and pointed around.

“Bed,” Yuuri wheezed, gripping the sheets weakly between his atrophied fingers.

“Good good, what else do you see?”

“Window.”

“Yes, good. Breathe in. Breathe out. More?”

“Table. Painting. Cart. Vase.” He came down from the attack slowly, breathing deeply between each word.

“Very good, Yuuri. Thank you,” Viktor encouraged, “It’s alright to feel panicked. It is a big discovery. I will just sit here for a moment. When you feel ready, you can ask me anything.”

A coldness rushed through his body, turning everything sluggish and heavy. It was just too difficult. Anything. There was so much he wanted to say to Viktor, but not this man.  _ I love you. Stay with me. Help me.  _ Yuuri glanced at him and could only say the one thing his jumbled mind offered in the moment. 

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

  
  


***

  
  


Viktor left Yuuri alone for a while, but visited the room regularly every few hours. He always sat patiently by Yuuri’s bed, spoke a few encouraging words, then left again when Yuuri refused to answer. It was the next evening before Yuuri yields at glance at him. He’d not had such a difficult patient before. To say their first meeting was a disaster would be an understatement. Had he presented himself too sternly? Or maybe he should have smiled more. People are always telling him to smile more.

No one had been asleep in the machine for quite so long as Yuuri had been. Perhaps it did a number on one’s psyche to spend too much time in an artificial world. Viktor was exceedingly careful around Yuuri, taking care to control his every expression and movement to be as polite and inoffensive as possible. It came off stilted and robotic, not to mention exhausting.

He threw out a question or two every few minutes, waiting for the right one to catch. None of them did.

An appeal to pragmatism didn’t work either.

“Yuuri, you can hate the situation, but please tell me some things. It is research that can help other patients like yourself.”

Yuuri simply laid in bed with his arms crossed in silent defiance. He was part angry, part heartbroken, part detached.

A nurse entered the room with a tray of food. Viktor took it from her hands and shooed her away. He set the tray down by Yuuri’s bed and gently asked, “Do you want to try to eat something? It is solyanka; it’s very good”

Glancing at the bowl of red soup, Yuuri frowned and said nothing. His stomach disagreed and turned with yearning for some food. It smelled divine, and he’d only eaten a bit of rice so far. It was with great disappointment in his traitorous body that he nodded and accepted the food. With a delighted hum, Viktor helped him sit up and pushed the tray closer. He unwrapped the utensils and handed Yuuri a spoon, wordless and calm.

Yuuri’s weak hands shook as he tried to eat, but he refused assistance. Better deal with himself than the indignity of being fed.

The soup was indeed very good: salty and rich. As he ate, Yuuri felt himself coming out of the stupor that was the past two days and truly waking up. The way the flavors slid over his tongue connected him to the present in a way no amount of tactile being could. This really was the real deal. He really had dreamed the entire year away.

He thought of how Viktor had tried to cook soup for him but let it sit too long and it formed a crusty ring of burnt bits along the sides that took him ages to scrub out. But that wasn’t even Viktor, and it certainly wasn’t real soup like what he was eating currently. His memory of it turned thin and watery, tasteless and bitter like sawdust.

After a few bites, he stopped eating. His newly open for business stomach wasn’t quite up to the job of an entire bowl. Viktor helped put the tray aside on the little table behind him.

Lost in thought, Yuuri let his fingers linger at his lips, still trying to recapture his memory. He flipped it back and forth in his mind, examining all his recollections for clues that should have given the illusion away to him. The way Viktor was on ice, how could he have made all that up? His routines, his costumes, every intricate movement was so perfect. He thought of those early routines, the blue sparkle of his outfit as he spun. Wait. His brows knit together as his mind’s eye scrutinized the image. That wasn’t Viktor. That was Johnny Weir.

He quickly rushed to all the other routines he held so closely in his heart. One by one he unraveled them from Viktor. Plushenko, Lambiel, Buttle. They all glimmered with reality around the edges. He had just conveniently merged them into the mirage of Viktor. Of course it made no sense that Viktor skated with so many different entries into the same jump.

“Yuuri, what are you thinking about?”

Yuuri snapped out of his thoughts to see Viktor sitting beside his bed with his chin on crossed fingers, intently staring at him with those cold blue eyes. He was definitely not a skater. No one with such poor posture could be as graceful as the Viktor Nikiforov in his mind.

He gazed downward at his hands. Like a wind-blown dandelion, the bits of memory constructs drifted and took root into his chest. Scattered, they began to grow painfully with each minute. He clasped a hand over his throat and whispered, “It really was all just a dream.”

Viktor nodded and rose up in his seat.

“What do I do now?” Yuuri finally asked after a long pause.

“Hmm, whatever you want, Yuuri. You can begin the rest of your life now.”

_ Are you ready for the rest of your life? _

Seeing Yuuri’s bottom lip tremble, Viktor immediately shifted the subject, “Why don’t we start with you telling me what you dreamed about. I want to hear about what you experienced.”

Evasive and hesitant, Yuuri recounted his year, from returning to Hasetsu to training again and going to the grand prix final. He kept his story dry, just a laundry list of competitions and results, carefully curated to exclude everything about Viktor. Those seeds in his chest sharply grew into trees, twisting and pushing their way into him with each word he spoke.

Fascinated with the manner this story was unfolding, Viktor tapped his lips with his index finger. It was the very same gesture Yuuri had seen countless times. Viktor found it indeed very curious the lack of mention of his program. Every patient had a slightly different experience with the machine copy of him in the simulation; each of their minds managed a different set of projections into the character. 

Eventually, he could not hold back his curiosity and inquired, “Yuuri, can you tell me who you made your Viktor into? Who did you want me to be?”

This question seemed to catch his attention. Yuuri slowly tilted his head toward him with a stormy expression. Just when they were getting along a bit better. A look wavering between fondness and loathing colored his dark eyes, as if he were reliving something. Subtly, his hands twitched against the hospital blanket, reaching for a memory. He pressed his lips together and refused to answer.

“So who was I? A friend? A father figure? A brother? A boyfri--”

“Stop.” Yuuri sharply cut him off.

“Ah,” Viktor nodded. He seemed to take something from Yuuri’s interruption, “I understand.”

Yuuri scowled and turned away, obviously upset by the line of questioning. It left them both with a strange feeling of overstepping boundaries. Something he said must have cut too close to home. 

“Yuuri, you don’t need to feel embarrassed to tell me. I have heard it all from other patients before. I make no judgments.”

Still in avoidance, Yuuri’s eyes were glued to the window and the dark gray city outside. It’s not yet evening, but the sun stole away early this time of year. Viktor let him stew in silence as he had done the past day. Together they listen to the buzz of the fluorescent lights and health monitors and pay their game of chicken once more. Someone always broke and supplied words. This time, it was Yuuri. 

“You really want to know?”

Viktor offered up a smile but it only made his patient more irate.

“You were my skating coach. He was the greatest figure skater to ever exist, and he chose to give it up to coach me. He was everything to me. I love him. And now, you want me to sit here and tell you all the things important to me. All the lies that were important to me, and what words go with what feelings?”

“Oh,” the lanky man awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, “I am sorry you are upset, Yuuri. I know it feels like the end of the world, but you must understand that your feelings are just electrical impulses created in response to stimuli. It will pass. We have evolved to manage loss like this.”

“My feelings? Loss like this?” His patient repeated incredulously.

“Yes, what you had perceived as love. It is not real.”

“You don’t believe in love.” It was an accusation as much as a statement.

“Well,” Viktor paused to contemplate if he should really get into it at this moment. Maybe it would do Yuuri good to see it his way. He shook his head and gave a wistful grin. “Of course not. What we call love is just a chemical cascade in our body. It is part of the old programming in our code. We don’t have to be at its mercy.”

A rustle of bedsheets accompanied Yuuri’s attempts to sit up higher. He found it too taxing to both move and speak and be outraged at once. So one at a time it was.

“You’re a cruel person,” Yuuri announced once he managed to hold his head higher. “You dangle this beautiful dream in front of people and then all we get is this.” He gestures around the room, lines and IVs softly hitting the bed rails. “Is that why you put yourself into the program? To laugh at how stupid we are that we can fall for a machine?”

Knitting his brows together in confusion, Viktor replied, “Of course not. I’m sorry, Yuuri. I did not intend it to be this way.”

“Then why did you put yourself in it?” he huffed in return.

“I began with an AI program, but the rejection rate was too high. All the patients recognized the program as a fake. There was no version I could create real enough. So I took a copy of my memories, myself, and it worked. Your mind fills in the gaps. You built the image into what you most need.”

He offers Yuuri a genuine smile this time, a slight crook of his lips. “It is not a surprise you choose it as your partner. It was everything you wanted.”

Yuuri tried to reach for his outrage, but it fizzled upon seeing a familiar smile. It only served to remind him of the magnitude of his loss. None of what he’d accomplished, learned, built was real. For the first time since waking, he felt hot tears stinging the rims of his eyes. Forcing his eyes closed to keep them in, he murmured, “I don’t know what to do.”

Viktor sighed and pulled his hand into his warm grasp. “It’s alright Yuuri, I will help you.”

Yuuri blinked back the tears in his eyes. “I don’t even know what to call you.”

“You can call me Viktor.”

“No.” The bitterness in Yuuri’s voice bled with every word. “You’re not Viktor. You look like him, but you’re not like him at all.”

Unsure of how to tame the chaos of emotion unfolding, Viktor could only pat his hand and offer, “I guess you can call me Vitya. It is what my friends call me.”

With a deep breath, Yuuri steadied the shake in his chest and repeated the name.

“Vitya.”

It felt foreign and strange.


	3. Chapter 3

Mari arrived in Sochi the next day.

In anticipation, Yuuri prepared an entire speech planned about how sorry he was to make everyone worry, to make them sad. And of course, he would explain his plans to return to Hasetsu and the family business as soon as he was better. It was a well-rehearsed speech, every detail played in his mind multiple times. What expression he should have; what tone he should use. Just perfect so she would not have to worry.

But when Mari opened the little hospital room door, the stiff waterproof outer material of her puffy coat rustling the silence out, Yuuri burst out crying. He’d been able to keep it in so far, but the sight of his sister broke every barrier he’d put up. The tears poured out and washed away every word he’d painstakingly strung together.

She hugged him without words. She heaved a sigh as she enveloped him in her warmth and care. He suddenly did not feel so lost anymore.

Hiccuping through his tears, he tried to recall what he wanted to say, but could not manage to reach anything. He could only sob a pathetic “I’m sorry.”

Mari leaned back to look at him and wiped at her own eyes before wiping his cheek and fondly saying, “Don’t be stupid, Yuuri.”

She wrapped him back into her arms and held him as she said the rest, “We missed you. We’re so happy you’re awake. Mom and dad couldn’t make it here, but they’re waiting for you at home. The onsen is doing ok. We can video chat if you want. It’s not too late there.”

Yuuri shook his head against her shoulder with a breathy laugh. The forest of worries in his heart fell tree by tree. He protested, “I need a haircut first. I don’t want them to see me like this.”

“Then how about a message for them?” She pushed.

Pulling back, Yuuri nodded slightly and wiped his eyes dry. She held out her phone and they recorded a short greeting for Hiroko and Toshiya. It held none of his planned words, only a few words of love.

“Yuuri, how are you? Is it ok here?”

Yuuri smiled weakly and gave a small nod. “The food is terrible,” he admitted with a small grumble.

Mari gave a loud laugh and slapped him on the arm. “That’s how I know you’re ok. You wake up after almost dying and of course, you complain about food first!”

Giving her a sheepish grin, he laughed along too. Before, he’d get annoyed at her teasing, but now it felt calming to have something familiar to hang on to. He clutched at her hand and refused to let it go.

“I have to do these stupid arm exercises. I look really dumb doing them, want to see?”

He raised one arm and did the muscle rebuilding exercises the physical therapist taught him. It was like a strange and silly dance move. Mari grinned and mimicked his movement. “Still so graceful after all,” she joked.

They whispered and laughed uninterrupted. It was easy to be with Mari. She didn’t comment on his state, didn’t try to insist she understood how he felt. She also didn’t seem to know anything about the circumstances from which he awoke. With her, he could almost forget that any of the dream even happened. As they spoke, he thought he saw a glimpse of Viktor’s silvery hair through the door’s small window pane, but when he glanced over each time, there was no one in the glass.

After a while, a doctor knocked on the door and entered with a stack of materials on a clipboard: the orthopedic surgeon. A round, old man with a Santa Claus beard, Yuuri recognized his face from the hospital promotional video that looped on the TV sometimes. He introduced himself with a friendly hand outstretched. He spoke slowly, but it was a garbled sort of English that sounded like it was filtered through a mouthful of potatoes.

The doctor gestured at some images on his tablet of what seemed to be x-rays. The bones were scattered with bright white bars and screws. Yuuri knew these were his bones, but they looked like a cyborg, stitched together by metal and wire.

“Will I walk again?” he interjected, unable to keep it in any longer. Mari squeezed his hand.

“Ah, walk, yes!” the surgeon flashed him a toothy smile. “But maybe with limp, yes.”

“A limp?” Yuuri’s eyes widened. He hadn’t realized it was so bad.

Gesturing wildly over the images, swiping between them, his surgeon seemed to be trying to convey the amount and severity of work he had to do to put everything together. “Big fracture here,” he pointed at a metal rod in his leg. “ALIF here”, he pointed at the spine image with various pins that seemed to float around bone, “With cage. You will be lucky to walk.”

“Will I skate again?”

The doctor was silent, he rocked his head left and right before finally saying, “Depends on you.”

Well, that was as good as a no.

“I will see you again in six weeks. Evaluate progress then,” The surgeon said as he got up to leave, “You may need another surgery.”

Yuuri thanked him and didn’t even watch him leave. Dejected, he sank back into the pillows and pondered a life without skating. He could finish school, but he wasn’t too good at that. He’d barely passed his last semester. Skating was all he knew. He couldn’t even teach skating if he couldn’t get back on the ice again. What kind of coach couldn't get up and demonstrate?

“Mari, can I have a moment? I want to be alone now.”

She hesitated but nodded.

Once Mari left, he thought more about what to do. Maybe he could work hard in physical therapy and get back there. But someone who walked with a limp surely couldn’t skate. He’d never seen that before.

“Yuuri, how are you today?” A soft voice called from the door. It was Viktor, head just barely in the doorframe.

Yuuri threw him a glare and felt his anger rising. It was all this idiot’s fault! It was terrible to die in an accident, but it was worse to live and be unable to do any of the things that gave him meaning. What point was a cup if it was cracked and could not hold water? It would have been better to just keep sleeping away, all the way until they pulled the plug. 

The heat in his chest rose like a cloud of foul smog. He gritted his teeth and shouted, “Everything is terrible! I’m never going to skate again! I’m barely going to be able to walk!”

Viktor’s eyes widened and he stood frozen dumbly in the doorway.

“It’s your fault! I don’t want to be here. You should have never woken me up,” he spat out, venom laced in every word. “I wish you could just plug me back into the machine!”

Viktor took his words in and softly murmured, “I’m sorry.” He turned and left with his head low. Probably a show to pretend he cared. Someone so cold as to not believe in love couldn’t possibly understand.

Fury taking over, Yuuri grabbed the closest thing to his hand, the TV remote, and flung it against the door. With his arms still weak, it fell far short of the actual door, landing on the floor with a crisp clatter. He cried for the second time that morning. Unlike earlier, these tears did not give any relief, they only served to make him more upset.

He cried until his eyes were red-rimmed and dry with nothing left to let out. Too numb to speak, all he could do afterward was stare blankly out the window at the greenspace by the hospital. It was a mass of yellow winter grass broken up by wet concrete paths and occasional small trees. Today was a warm winter morning and there were many patients out in the sun, some in walkers, some with canes, some pushed by nurses in wheelchairs. He was going to be one of these invalids soon, haunting the hospital grounds with his pitiful body. His eyes floated from person to person until he saw Mari sitting on one of the benches in the corner. She had a cigarette in her hand and seemed deep in thought.

After a minute, a figure in a dark gray coat joined her. Squinting and leaning toward the window, Yuuri tried to get a better look. This person was familiar, his silver hair unmistakable: Viktor. He said a few words to Mari, and she searched around her purse before handing him something. A moment later, he pulled out a cigarette from his coat pocket and held the item up. Ah, a lighter.

They exchanged more words as they both took puffs from their cigarettes. It was too far to see their specific expressions. Viktor leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and turned back to face Mari. She patted him on the shoulder and blew out a puff of smoke before saying something that made him laugh.

He ran a hand through his hair and tossed a few words back at her. Her blonde hair shook as she laughed too.

Yuuri couldn’t guess at their conversation, but he had an intense paranoia they were making fun of him. A strange feeling welled up in his stomach at the sight of them speaking so freely to each other. The Viktor in his dream had never said much to Mari, never really spent any time with her alone. It was so odd to see them now, sitting on the same bench, exchanging easy words like old acquaintances. This Viktor knew Mari already; they looked to even be friends.

It was a slightly sour feeling, like a fruit that made one wince when tasting it. An involuntary tenseness moved through his brows. He supposed this was what they called jealousy. But what did he have to be jealous of? He didn’t even like this Viktor.

  
  


***

  
  


The rest of the day passed in a blur. To cheer him up, Mari found a pair of scissors to cut his hair. When Yuuri saw her intention, he held up both hands and waved her away. He needed a professional!

“What? I cut my own hair all the time,” she gestured around her wild locks that stood in every direction.

“That’s exactly why not.”

Not taking no for an answer, she grinned and threw a white sheet into his lap. “Come on, sit up so I can get this sheet around you.”

Yuuri groaned but acquiesced. He gave her suspicious glances with each snip he felt her take. At first, he commented, but then Mari began to threaten that her hand would slip and he remained quiet. Mari made noises of approval as she combed through his hair and cut here and there, her scissors raining dust of hair clippings down. When she was done, she flipped his hair this way and that before finally giving him the tiny compact mirror from her purse.

“Looks good, no?” she hummed proudly.

“Ahhhhhhh!” Yuuri shrieked as he saw his reflection, “I look like a sad Yama-chan!”

Mari leaned down to get a good look at him. She tapped her chin before patting his head and chided, “You do not. Don’t insult Yamasato-san like that. You look fine.” She blew a breath of air around his neck to dislodge the clippings trapped there, before adding as an afterthought, “Do you want me to cut the front shorter then?”

“No NO!” 

Yuuri covered his face with his hands and shook his head violently.

“Come on Yuuri, I didn’t think you were so vain. Move so I can dump the hair.” Yuuri eventually flopped his hands down and let her unwrap the sheet and pull away the hair clippings. “Very handsome,” she encouraged.

Yuuri grumbled something under his breath and let out a petulant breath. While he watched Mari clean up, he felt his feelings start to well up again. Struggling to keep control of his emotions, his hands trembled. Just keep it in, he told himself, he shouldn’t burden Mari with all those bad thoughts.

“Mari-neechan, what do you think I should do?”

Mari blinked up at him, confused. “Do what?”

He ran a hand through his newly cut hair, savoring the feeling of the shortness of the back. “You know, what should I do with myself now.”

“Do your physical therapy and get better, obviously.” She went back to cleaning the floor of all the stray clippings. A broom and dustpan seemingly appeared from thin air. 

“No,” he quietly sniffed, “After that. What do I do if I can’t skate? I don’t know how to do anything else.”

At this, Mari sighed and ceased her cleaning. She leaned back against the wall and looked at him with half-lidded eyes. “There aren't that many guests now but the onsen is doing ok. You can go back there if you want. Whatever you want to do, I can support you.”

The way she leaned on the wall was just the same as she had in his dream when he’d pondered the very same question for a completely different reason. Suddenly he was overcome with affection for his sister. She was so real and captured so well in his mind that he could create her with great fidelity, even in a simulation.

It was a shame she could only be here for a few days.

He gave her a watery smile. “Thank you.”

  
  


***

  
  


Once Mari left when visiting hours passed, Yuuri settled into sleep. With the lights out, darkness from outside crept in. He listened to the heart monitor’s faint sounds, noting how he could speed it up or slow it down by concentrating on his breathing. He made a note to ask the nurses the next day if they could remove the monitors since he was no longer in any medical danger.

A quiet scuffling from the hallway broke the rhythmic noise. Yuuri turned on his side to see what was happening. A shadow appeared in the tiny window. Without his glasses on, he couldn’t tell who it was. Had Mari come back?

The person gently wiggled the door handle and opened the door slowly, as if trying to be as quiet as possible. The suspense of it reminded Yuuri of a thriller movie where a murderer is creeping in to kill the protagonist. The beeps on the heart rate monitor speed up considerably.

“Yuuri, are you awake,” the intruder called in a loud whisper.

“Vitya?”

“Yes, you are not sleeping are you?”

His relieved heart stopped thumping when he heard who it was. Just Viktor. Of course, he’d be dramatic about his entrance.

“Well, I guess I’m not anymore,” he scolded back. “Why are you sneaking around?”

Viktor took that as an invitation and crept into the room. He had a large duffle bag with him that rustled loudly as he slid it across the floor. Closing the door quietly with equal care, he tiptoed to the chair by Yuuri’s bed and settled down in it.

“Sorry, sorry, Yuuri! I am not supposed to be here. I had to bribe a nurse with chocolate salami to let me in.”

That much was obvious. Yuuri rolled his eyes and leaned over to grab his glasses. Even with them on, he still couldn’t see Viktor very well in the darkness. Only the gleam of his hair was visible in the dim room.

“I know you are mad at me, Yuuri, so I’m here to make it up to you!” The grin in his voice was unmistakable.

“Unfortunately, you can’t bribe me with dessert,” Yuuri replied dryly. Well, actually, he’d take the dessert. What he meant was, there’s no forgiveness from dessert. If Viktor thought he could just eat his way, well…

It was too dark to see, but Viktor seemed to smile at his snide remark. “Ah, Yuuri, I am here to offer you a gift of a lifetime!” he excitedly whispered as he took out something from the bag. Curiosity peaked, Yuuri squinted to take a look only to be disappointed that it was just a laptop.

Holding the laptop as if it were sacred, Viktor continued, tapping on the laptop’s candy hard case, “I can put you back into the simulation for a day. You can go see everyone, do everything, say your goodbyes, find your closure.”

Yuuri’s heart dropped. Return to the dream? He could see Viktor again, pet Makkachin and soar across the ice.

“Only for a day?”

“It is dangerous to put a conscious person any longer. Your body would not adjust well. Also, if they catch us in the morning, I’m sure I’d never be able to step foot in here again. So it can only be from now until dawn. What do you say, Yuuri? One perfect day?” Viktor was unpacking more items from the bag: box-like objects, extension cords, and a heavy mess of wires that clanged against the hospital bed rails.

A perfect day. In that world where everything was still full of hope and possibility.

He didn’t wait for even a breath before answering, “I want to go now.”

Viktor nodded and began to set up the device. He whispered to Yuuri as he plugged the leads in, explaining each part’s purpose. The words were difficult to follow, strings of technical jargon and unintelligible terms, but the sound of his voice settled the unease between them.

When it was finished, Yuuri laid nestled in a mess of cables and wires, heart thundering in his throat. He really was going back. The mesh cap of arrays itched against his scalp, but he didn’t dare touch it, fearing he would dislodge something from the position it needed to be.

“Are you ready?” Viktor asked lightly as peered over the top of one laptop. 

Yuuri stared at him, contemplating how he was about to say goodbye to one Viktor and hello to another. The one before him was beautiful in his own way too. Not soft and warm, but like a Maki Kusumoto drawing, all fluid lines and edges in stark minimalism. His face was a flat pastel blue, illuminated by the glow of his screen.

“I’m ready.”

The tapping and clicking of Viktor’s keyboard lulled him into calm.

“Okay, Yuuri. Close your eyes, breathe deep. The next time you open them will be in there.”

  
  


***

  
  


Yuuri woke to the smell of coffee.

He opened his eyes and immediately closed them. Sun blinded him, orange and painful through his eyelids but bestowing warmth to his skin. Throwing a hand against the light, he rolled over only to find himself falling off the edge. A small yelp escaped his lips as he tried to hold onto the nightstand. Not only did it not help, but he also knocked a glass of water over, sending brittle glass crashing to the ground.

Well, that was not a good beginning to his perfect day.

Yuuri picked himself up, careful to not cut himself on any of the glass shards. To his delight, he could move freely, sit, and stand in a fluid motion. He inspected his limbs and found them to be strong and solid like he was used to being. No signs of the atrophy that plagued him in the hospital. He reached into the neck of his shirt and felt only smooth skin, no sign of where the port used to be.

Around him was Viktor’s bedroom, flooded with light. His suitcase was still open half-hazard in the corner, spilling clothes into the closet. Just as he’d left! He was truly back!

“Yuuri?!” A familiar voice called from outside the room. “Are you ok in there?”

His heart skipped a beat.

The possibility of this day bloomed. He could skate, hold Viktor close, and delight in his touch. Yuuri could live as who he knew he was.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

“My Yuuri, what are you thinking about?”

Warm hands, soft touch, full heart.

“I know it’s late, but I don’t want to fall asleep. I don’t want this day to end.”

A smile.

“Don’t be silly, all days end. Go to sleep. We have to start training tomorrow.”

A sigh.

“Hold me close?”

***

Yuuri woke to the monitors beeping in the room. The sun had barely risen, only a faint orange spattering across the horizon. He closed his eyes against the glow and let out a long breath. The sweet memory of yesterday felt so far away. So it was that time marched differently in the machine, he thought ruefully.

Feeling stiffness in his back, he pushed himself to sit up a bit. The banket stubbornly refused to move, a weight keeping it from yielding. Yuuri lifted his head and saw that Dr. Nikiforov was slumped over the bed, fast asleep. Should he wake him? He raised a hand to shake him, but put it back down, unable to bring himself to do it. No matter how much he told himself this was a different person than the one he just held in his arms, shadowy traces planted just enough doubt.

Against his better judgment, Yuuri decided to take off the leads and the wires himself. One by one, he pulled them to the side and grouped them all on the bed. It was a trial to not tangle all of them. Periodically, he glanced at the sleeping man beside him.

The way Viktor’s hair fell over his face, the twitch of brow when he dreamed, it was eerily similar yet different.

It wasn’t fair.

This world wasn’t the one he was meant for, the one he wanted.

This Viktor wasn’t the right one.

The cut of his cheekbones was sharper, not comforting. Yuuri did not want to touch him or sigh into his embrace. Mind drifting, he wondered if this Viktor stirred the pot the same way in figure eights when he made soup. He couldn’t help but run across every little thing and how much he preferred the version he’d left behind.

Every thought left a bitter cut.

He set down a mess of wires harshly and the entire pile slid to the floor with a series of clacks. Cursing, Yuuri tried to lean over to see what had happened. A hand on his arm stopped him from going further. 

“Yuuri, why didn’t you wake me?” Viktor mumbled as he blinked at the fallen wires in confusion.

“I…” Yuuri stammered. He could not think of a good answer. He didn’t feel like it? “Sorry, I hope I didn’t break anything.”

Viktor rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stretched his shoulders. A little stiff, but no worse for wear, he shook his head. Helping Yuuri sit up, he waved away the comment, “Don’t worry about it. Did you have a good time?”

The question made Yuuri’s stomach roll. A good time? Viktor’s words were so casual, like a friend asking about a summer movie or an amusement park ride. It was absurd to levels he couldn’t articulate. He wanted to sneer: yes, my life you destroyed was a good time, thank you very much.

Sensing he’d said something wrong, Viktor tried to backtrack, “You look troubled, Yuuri. Can I do anything for you?”

Yuuri said nothing.

He continued to stay silent as he watched Viktor disconnect everything and pack it all back into his bag. Each piece disappeared into the black bag, his vivid dreams into a void. A wave of anticipation and nervousness began to build up, heating his face, ratcheting up his pulse. When Viktor placed the last part, the laptop, into the bag, he felt himself standing on a precipice. Now or never.

“Put me back.”

“Eh?”

Viktor furrowed his brow, not comprehending such a strange comment.

“What do you mean?”

Yuuri clenched the blanket and kept his eyes down. “I want to go back in there.”

Viktor looked at his watch and replied, “It’s almost time for the nurses to do morning rounds. I have to go. There is not enough time.”

“No, not now, but I want to go back.”

Zipping up the bag, Viktor took his seat at the bedside again. He leaned down to try and meet Yuuri’s eyes. “Yuuri, we talked about this being the last time. If you want to do it again another night, I don’t know, maybe.”

“I don’t want just another night.”

“Then what…”

Yuuri steeled his body as best as he could, as though he would fall to pieces once he said his intention aloud. His eyes remained glued to the sheets.

“I want to go back forever. Plug me back in permanently.”

Viktor took in a sharp breath. He paused, speechless.

Closing his eyes, Yuuri continued, “I know what I’m asking. I know that I won’t be in this world if I’m in there.”

“Yuuri, don’t be rash,” Viktor reached for Yuuri’s hand and said softly, “Going back means you’ll die. This program, these machines, they aren’t designed for that. People can’t live without their minds. You are upset right now, don't make a decision like this so suddenly. Take some time and think about it.”

Mustering all the strength he could, Yuuri looked up and met his eyes. “I don’t care. I’ve decided. Vitya, I want you to put me back. I’d rather die than be like this.”

This time it was Viktor who had to look away. “I can’t just…”

“You asked me what you could do for me.”

“Yuuri…” He grasped for things to say. “I can’t possibly understand what you are feeling, but you should know that there are so many people that love you. They want you here. They asked me to wake you because they care for you. I know it’s painful, but surely that makes this world worthwhile. It would break their hearts to hear you talk like this.”

“Please don’t guilt me.”

Viktor stopped, his expression fallen. “Just think about it more, ok? Give it some time. Talk to your sister at least. If your family supports you...then I will help you.” All he could do was buy time until Yuuri came to his senses.

Yuuri pressed his lips together. It was a standoff as he contemplated the difficult task. He supposed it was only fair. This wasn’t just from momentary weakness and mental distress, and he had to prove it. There were many moments in his life when he had choices but not courage, or he had courage but no choice. Now, seemingly for the first time, he had both. This felt like the right answer.

It took immense courage to decide such a thing.

He nodded.

***

Viktor was used to hospital hallways from his previous patients. The carts, the beds, the movement, none of it phased him anymore. He knew to tuck himself against the corners and not be in the way. He leaned against the wall and watched Yuuri speak to Mari through the door’s tiny pane of glass.

How could it have gone so wrong? He ought to shut this trial down and call it all a failure. What he’d done here was perhaps worse than leaving things to chance.

It left a complicated knot in his heart.

On its surface, it looked like a success. Yuuri woke up just like the others, yes, but ironically, he’d lost the will to live right after gaining it. Was it that the program was too good? Were humans the type of creatures that couldn’t place the sadness of others above their own? Or was it just that real life was such a disappointment any reasonable person would decline upon seeing the alternative?

What did it say about him, the program’s creator?

What did it say about the ethics of what he believed to be the right thing?

He itched to smoke a cigarette but was too engrossed in trying to guess what Yuuri was saying to Mari. It was curious, strange to watch. She didn’t seem outwardly upset.

If he treated it as a thought experiment, he could convince himself to understand. If he were at the movies and discovered the movie was terrible halfway, he supposed he would just sit through the rest of it. However, if he knew it was terrible before it began, and his friends were waiting for him outside, he probably could talk himself into not watching at all. Wasn’t that what this was like?

But life was not low stakes like a mere movie…

On the other hand, who was he to judge Yuuri’s wish? Choosing to live in the face of adversity was celebrated, but how could it actually be a choice if no one felt choosing to die was a valid option? It didn’t seem quite right to just say that wanting a way out meant the patient was mentally unstable or must reconsider. 

Mari wiped at her eyes inside the room. Viktor stiffened and leaned forward to watch with great interest. She touched Yuuri’s cheek, and he held her hand there for a moment before saying something. She nodded in agreement.

Before Viktor could begin to decipher what that could mean, she opened the door and called to him.

“Hey, Viktor, want to go for a smoke?”

Anticipation shook him out of his tired stillness. He hoped she’d been successful and this uncomfortable situation was about to pass. The seed of unease in his stomach was sprouting and reaching its vines through his veins. Sensing his anxiety, Mari tilted her head and gave him a reassuring pat on the arm.

“Lead the way.” He gestured with a half-hearted smile.

***

They went back to the bench in the courtyard. Mari cracked a joke about how their roles were reversed today. Neither of them laughed.

She leaned back on the graying wood slats and blew out a long stream of smoke into the cold air. Training her gaze on Viktor, she studied him with a slight wry grin. 

“How long does it take to do this--” she couldn’t find the word for it, “this process?”

Viktor’s shock was written clearly on his face. “You can’t mean that--”

Mari gave a dry laugh and took a drag from her cigarette. “Just tell me how long.”

“I don’t know,” he stammered, “Maybe weeks? A few months? We’d have to build him inside the program essentially. It takes a very long time to record enough of his memories and thoughts.”

Nodding, Mari tapped ash with her thumb. She took the answer in and seemed deep in thought.

“You have my support then. Please help Yuuri do what he wants.”

He drew in a sharp breath. “Do you know what you are agreeing to?”

“I understand,” she sighed. “What you must understand is that once Yuuri has made up his mind about something, it consumes him. He is incapable of letting it go. What kind of kid from a tiny town without a figure skating program ends up an internationally ranked professional? The kind with an irrational fixation. He won’t be able to think about anything else and he won't be happy.”

“If we do this, then he will be gone.”

Mari wistfully agreed, “I know. But you will have a lot of time together. He’ll continue physical therapy, and I hope he’ll learn that it’s not so bad. Maybe he will change his mind in all that time. I know it puts you in a difficult position; it’s a lot to ask. You can say no. Don’t feel guilty about this, like I said yesterday, this is my responsibility. He wouldn’t be asking if I hadn’t persuaded you to take him as a patient. We will try to pay for everything.”

“No,” he immediately interjected, “No need for that. There are enough funds in the project to cover whatever he needs.”

Despite her insistence that they both were treading the same ethically murky water, Viktor somehow felt that was not the correct assessment. She was a capsized victim in this just as Yuuri was; any reasonable person looking in from the outside could see. He stared down at his own cigarette. It’d since burned to a loose cylinder of ash. He’d completely forgotten to smoke it.

“What if I can’t change his mind?”

She gave him a strange expression, as though she was about to say something but thought it inappropriate. 

“Then maybe it’s right for him to go. If he doesn't find something worthy to live for in all that time, I would be sad, but I am willing to pay the suffering for his happiness.” Upon seeing Viktor’s stricken expression, she pointed her cigarette at him, “Do you have any siblings?”

He shook his head. 

“Have you ever loved someone?”

He was very still.

“Then you understand.”


	5. Chapter 5

Yuuri spent the next weeks recovering and building strength for his move. After the neurologist threw a fit about him flying in his “condition”, it was decided that they would take the train to St. Petersburg. Something about not taking traumatic brain injury seriously. It would take far longer, but the risk from altitude and pressure changes could be avoided.

Once Mari flew home, Viktor also left to go prepare for Yuuri’s move. It was lonely at times, yet the days passed quicker. Mari called every day, sometimes with their parents, sometimes just alone late at night after the onsen guests had settled down. 

Viktor called too, but it was always brief. He’d ask how Yuuri felt and how he was doing that day. Frustratingly, he never disclosed anything about himself.

Physical therapy reminded Yuuri of his training routines, the aches, the repetition, the standard words of encouragement that he knew all patients received regardless of their effort. 

_“Your progress is so much compared to others!”_

_“You’re doing so well, Yuuri!”_

He counted the days down with each bit of progress.

Bending knees, 30 days.

Chopsticks, 25 days.

Lifting a plate, 20 days.

Once he could get into a wheelchair without close assistance, it was time.

***

“Yuuri, what are you thinking?”

Viktor was in the backseat of a taxi with him. Yuuri watched each building they passed like he was inspecting each one and committing them to memory. The facades of intricate stone, they were so familiar, drawing up the strangest dejavu. 

He had been here before. He had never been here really.

“I’m just tired,” he lied.

The train was not entirely comfortable, but he couldn’t complain. He slept most of the way and only woke when Viktor was on a phone call with someone, his voice irritated as though he were talking to a petulant child. He gave Yuuri a light shrug and left their sleeper car to continue the conversation outside.

“I hope you will find the apartment ok. I measured your wheelchair and unfortunately, some of the door frames are not wide enough inside. I didn’t have time to get any construction done, so I just took the doors and the frames off. I’m sorry it is a little weird to not have a door to close on your bedroom. I will get it fixed soon!” Viktor explained with an exaggerated gesture of his fingers in a square shape.

Yuuri smiled weakly and murmured, “It’s okay, Vitya. Thank you for thinking of me.”

The city flashed by in the twilight, just as they had the first time.

When the taxi pulled up to the building, Yuuri recognized it immediately. The smooth gray blocks of its soviet-era construction were unmistakable. So he really had been here before. It made him wonder if the apartment was also the same inside. His heart thumped to his throat as Viktor pushed his wheelchair into the lobby.

The doorman waved and called the elevator for them. Viktor exchanged a few words with the man while they waited. 

Yuuri felt his insides freezing. This man, Igor, was instantly recognizable by his toothbrush mustache. It was the first time he saw someone else from the inside was manifesting outside. He quickly averted his eyes to his feet. It must have seemed strange to stare so long.

The elevator ride was also familiar, the dark cherry trim around the button panel exactly as he remembered. It almost felt like going home if it wasn’t for the image of himself in the mirror walls. He didn’t look like himself.

“Ready? Welcome home, Yuuri,” Viktor announced as he turned the key.

Yuuri was too overcome with emotion to speak when he was wheeled inside. 

It was absolutely the same as he knew. The birch shoe rack by the door lined with shoes he recognized as Viktor’s: a pair of brown leather boat shoes, a pair of silly green sneakers he’d made fun of. The furniture was arranged in all the same places, down to the gray knit blanket hanging from the couch. He held back a choked sob as he saw a sliver of Viktor’s bedroom through its dismantled doorway. It too was the same.

“Yuuri?”

He looked at Viktor and could only give a shaky nod. If Viktor the person was so different he could hardly bear to dwell, the apartment was so identical that it made him question what was an illusion. This was the exact place, it’s warm yellow light pulled forth the same feelings. He’d sat on that couch and languished after a tiring day.

His gaze dwelled on the vase of dusty wilted red tulips sitting on the kitchen counter. It made him want to catch on fire.

“Ah, that, don’t mind it, Yuuri. I have a bad habit of keeping flowers for too long.”

Yuuri couldn’t help the words that poured out to finish the thought. “Because your mom did the same. You think they are still beautiful.”

Viktor stopped mid-step and turned to Yuuri with wide eyes, the shock plain on his face as if he wasn’t expecting to be so unsettled. “So you’ve been here before. Well...” Viktor stammered, suddenly at a loss of how to proceed, “I guess you won’t be needing a tour then. You’ll be in the second bedroom. I expect you know where that is already.”

A mild understatement. How silly was this? Negotiating boundaries with a person you’ve already consented to, but who has yet to consent to you. Yuuri couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. “I guess it’s true.”

He turned his eyes around the room and stopped at the far corner where he remembered a bookcase standing. There was a door instead. He couldn’t recall there ever being a room.

“What does that go to?” He pointed at the extra door.

Viktor pushed Yuuri toward it and pushed open the door with his right hand. “This is my office. You probably did not see this. I purposefully kept this out of the program so it would not break the illusion.”

The office was littered with monitors, tools, machines with their chips, and insides exposed. It looked more like a workshop than an office. Yuuri couldn’t help his curiosity around this room. It alone belonged to Vitya and not his Viktor. For such a neat person, it was unusual to see such clutter, but he supposed it wasn’t entirely out of character for Viktor to have an order to things only he could see.

“Excuse the mess,” Viktor said as he flipped the light on, “it’s the only room I tell the maid to not clean.”

Yuuri’s eyes flickered over to the corner and settled on the figure? Statue? It was the bust of an older woman made of uncanny, almost-human silicon. Viktor followed his line of sight and he gave a small ‘ah’ as he saw what Yuuri was staring at.

“Before I made the program, I tried to build a robot. Yes, I know, how very stereotypical. Don’t mind her, just a relic from a failed experiment.”

Yuuri turned and swept his attention at the desk. There was a small photograph behind the main monitor of a small boy with a man and a woman. He guessed these must be Viktor’s parents. The image gave his heart a small jolt. In all their time together, Viktor had never spoken much of his family. Yuuri had thought it strange for a man to have so little connection, but now he knew it must have been an intentional omission just as this office was. What other parts had he concealed?

“She looks like the woman in this photo,” he remarked absently. The smallest grimace passed over Viktor’s face, and Yuuri knew he’d been too presumptuous. He quickly supplied, “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, no it’s ok,” Viktor assured him. “She is based on my mother. Mama has Alzheimer’s, you see, and I originally wanted to record all her thoughts and memories and recreate her. I wanted to keep a copy of her memories so I could put her back together. But it didn’t work. Her memory was too corrupted.” He stopped and picked up the picture frame.

“I couldn’t really capture her with any fidelity. But it wasn’t all a loss; the process and the technology for the program started with her. It’s how I was able to put myself in there and how we will create you as well.”

Yuuri drank in this knowledge and felt it let him finally understand the man before him, why he was so relentless and tinged by sadness. He looked at the android again and couldn’t help but ask, “If we are recording a copy, how will I be in there as me? Wouldn’t it just be a program and not actually me?”

Viktor chuckled a bit at this question and set the photograph down. “That is the age-old philosophical question. What even is consciousness? Are you truly different from the data that is in your mind? If you respond the same, feel, think the same, is it not you?”

Puzzled, Yuuri bit his lip in contemplation. “But I feel things and I am aware of myself. How can a program do that?”

“Think of when you were in there last. Your experiences were a series of electrical impulses between your brain and the machine. Stimuli and reaction. When you touched a sweater, you were given the signals for that. Your hands did not touch anything. If we move all of that just into the machine and take your brain out of the equation, it is the same.”

“But you are not the Viktor in there. You are different.”

“Well,” he tapped a finger to his lips, “That is because I left much of myself out. I had to leave enough holes for you to fill in, or he may not have been interesting enough to you. But if I had made him exactly as I am, down to the very last moment of my life, we would be the same.”

“I don’t...I still don’t understand.”

Viktor wheeled Yuuri out of the office and back into the living room. “Don’t worry, Yuuri, we have lots of time to talk about it. Are you hungry?”

Not quite ready to drop the subject, Yuuri turned and looked at the office door, intently staring at the little picture frame. How could a program capture the soup of sensations that was his body? The butterfly feeling in his stomach when he knew someone loved him. If it was possible to capture a person’s entirety into lines of data and code, did that mean people could live forever? He hadn’t quite looked at it that way before.

Did he want to live forever? 

***

Yuuri spent the rest of the evening in a haze of thoughts. He asked more questions but Viktor’s answers only seemed to confound his understanding. His dreams were uneasy and filled with pieces from his childhood. Getting his first pair of skates that were just slightly too big and wobbled on his feet. His first salchow jump, the feeling of accomplishment. According to Viktor, those were the things that made him Yuuri. But he couldn’t help shake the idea that there was something inherent, innate, a soul that could never be captured by the zeros and ones.

Getting up in the morning without assistance felt like a monumental struggle. Too prideful to admit his limits, Yuuri spent far too long putting on his clothes before giving up and finally asking Viktor for help.

“Don’t be shy, Yuuri,” Viktor said as he helped put a sweater over his head. “I don’t mind.”

When Viktor began to wheel him toward the bathroom, Yuuri put a hand on the wheels and insisted, “I want to try to get myself there.”

“Wow! That is very ambitious.”

“I can do it,” Yuuri gritted through his teeth as he pushed the wheels. Going just a few paces down the hall felt like pushing thousand tons of bricks.

Seeing the difficulty, Viktor gave an excuse. “Ah, Yuuri, maybe I will help you just this once. Someone is coming in a bit to bring Makkachin home. I would hate for you to be all tired when they arrive.”

“Makkachin?” A thrill ran through him. “Makkachin is real?”

“Of course my dog is real! She is getting a bit old, but she is still very special. She likes to beg for food--don’t give her any, ok?” Viktor let out a laugh as he pushed Yuuri into the bathroom and set him in front of the sink. “Yell at me if you need anything in here,” He closed the door behind him but it swung a bit. Viktor had reattached the door to the bathroom for privacy, but it hung oddly without the frame so there was a large gap and it could not quite close.

Yuuri looked at the strange door and vowed to work hard at physical therapy. He had to get out of the wheelchair so they could put the doors back as they were. Once he finished brushing his teeth, he decided to wheel himself out of the bathroom. Had to start somewhere.

At that time, Viktor had begun to make breakfast and the apartment was filled with the aroma of brewing coffee.

“What are you making?” 

Viktor stopped stirring and remarked with delight, “Ah! Yuuri, you should have called me to come help! Sorry I didn’t mention it before. I am very forgetful. My friend who is bringing Makkachin will be having breakfast with us. We’ll just be having something simple: kasha, eggs, and butterbrots. Are you allergic to anything?”

Shaking his head, Yuuri pushed himself forward to the kitchen table. Viktor had already removed a seat so his wheelchair could fit. He wondered if Vitya’s cooking was any better than Viktor the skater (who was at best mediocre). It brought a small smile to his lips to think about the valiant but only moderately successful efforts Viktor attempted. Soon, they’ll be together again. He hoped Makkachin would break some of the awkwardness of this in-between space he occupied.

As if someone read his mind, a loud impatient knock came from the door. Viktor turned off the stove and dashed over. The door was out of Yuuri’s view and he could only strain to hear what was happening.

A loud bark came from the doorway. Makkachin!

Viktor said something admonishing in Russian. It wasn’t clear if it was at the dog or his guest. Another voice replied in a snide tone. The voice sounded gruff and familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. A rush of pattering dog paws on wooden floors echoed throughout the apartment, and a large poodle bound into the kitchen. She cocked her head to the side and regarded Yuuri with great curiosity.

Yuuri smiled and extended a hand. She looked exactly as he remembered, fluffy brown curls covering her big, bright eyes, tongue perpetually hanging out.

“Makkachin, I’m Yuuri.”

The dog tentatively edged forward before licking his hand and sitting down. She raised her head and panted in joy when Yuuri scratched behind the ears. 

“Yuuri, this is…” Viktor’s voice came from behind. "Oh ha! I forget! You are both Yuri!”

“Eh?!”

Too occupied by the dog, Yuuri hadn’t noticed them approaching. To his shock, the guest was Yuri Plisetsky, projecting the same overconfident punk coolness as the young skater from his time in the machine. Even his black hoodie was familiar, with a tiger emblazoned on the front.

“Yurio?” It slipped out without thought.

The teenager gave an unimpressed look. “What the fuck is Yurio?”

“Watch your language!” Viktor admonished, “This is Yuuri Katsuki. He’s one of my patients here for a bit helping me with research. Don’t be rude, introduce yourself.”

Yuri made a strange face before casually tossing out a “that’s weird” and extending a hand mechanically. He seemed allergic to the concept of handshakes, grudgingly following the social norm but putting his disdain on full display. “Yuri Plisetsky. So you’re why Viktor’s been gone so long.”

“Be nice, Yura,” Viktor warned from the kitchen.

Shaking his hand, Yuuri muttered, “Nice to meet you.” 

Awkward was a nice way to put it. To Yuuri’s disappointment, Makkachin got up and padded to the kitchen, begging for scraps. It left just the two of them at the table, staring at each other. Yuri Plisetsky did not attempt to hide his too-cool-to-be-here attitude. The boy folded his arms and leaned back against the chair. 

“So what happened to you? Did you fall out of an airplane like the last guy?”

Yuuri was taken aback by the sheer abrasiveness. It shouldn’t have shocked him. He knew Yurio was like this, always poking for a reaction. “Um, no. They tell me I was in a car accident.”

“How boring.”

Laughing nervously, Yuuri nodded. He’d never thought of it like that before, but he did suppose a car accident was boring compared to falling out of the sky.

“Were you drag racing or something?”

Yuuri made a surprised face. “Oh no, I was in a taxi going back to my hotel room from a figure skating competition. Someone ran a red light and hit us.”

“Huh.” The teenager regarded him with a blank look. “So, are you like a famous skater then? Can you jump a lot of quads?”

“No,” Yuuri muttered, shaking his head, “I’m not that good. I’m just a mediocre skater. I was, I mean.”

Yuri Plisetsky mouthed an “ok” and tucked his hands into his sweatshirt pocket. He seemed bored by the entire conversation. Suddenly, he leaned forward, locking eyes with Yuuri and grinning. “Did you like the Pirozhki?”

“What?”

“In the program. I helped write some of it. The Pirozhki are part of the exit protocol written based on my memory. Did you like it?”

Yuuri wasn’t sure what to say, but Viktor came to the rescue by calling the over-eager boy away. “Yura! Come help carry things to the table!”

The boy heaved a sigh and swung himself out of the chair. He was so very indistinguishable from the way Yuuri remembered him, it was decidedly eerie. Was the grandpa who lived in Moscow also real?

_Did you like it? Too much apparently._

“Vitya, you suck. I take care of your dog for weeks, and you thank me with this totally lame breakfast. Don’t you remember telling me you would take me out?” he grumbled as he set a plate of eggs down.

Viktor smiled apologetically. “Forgive me for my poor memory, I promise to buy you the fanciest breakfast you can find next weekend.”

“You better,” he huffed as he sat down.

Viktor seemed to purposefully steer the conversation away from Yuuri or the situation, and he was grateful for the distraction. He learned that Yuri Plisetsky was the nephew of Viktor’s graduate advisor, Yakov Feltsman; that Dr. Nikiforov had a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience and was not a medical doctor. And that young Yuri sometimes did little projects with Viktor, that he was a gifted coder and an avid video game player. When Yuuri ventured that maybe they could play together sometime, the teen merely laughed and said “only if you like getting destroyed”. For all his bluster and sharp edges, he seemed to idolize Viktor in the same way the young skater Yuri did.

He supposed there was truth grounding the people and places in the dream simulation, and that was why none of it had felt like a lie. It was beginning to become difficult to separate, blurring together who said or did what. Yurio and this Yuri, Makkachin, even Viktor with his small kindnesses. He was beginning to feel as if he did know them a bit after all.

Candidly gesturing, Yuri continued ranting about something.

“I want to build things. I mean, I don’t want to make shitty apps,” he clarified, “I want to build real technology like Viktor and Ser--” He skipped over something. “I hate mobile apps and all this American Silicon Valley bullshit. Everyone’s excited about the next Facebook and too busy to realize that obviously Facebook blows.”

“You hate apps?” Yuuri asked, incredulous. Didn’t teenagers love apps? 

Yuri shook his fork around wildly and railed against the subject. “Of course! All these apps are always just about shopping or surveillance. They’re pointless. Half of them don’t do anything you can’t do faster and better in a browser. They try to make you think your life is better, but in the end, you’ve just collected a bunch of little squares on your phone you never open.”

Well, that’s certainly a very passionate takedown.

“But isn’t it nice to be able to buy things from your phone?” Yuuri asked.

Rolling his eyes, Yuri Plisetsky let out a disgusted sound and went back to eating as if Yuuri had completely missed the point and didn’t even deserve an answer.

“Don’t be so rigid. Things exist because people want them,” Viktor chided gently as he poured himself some more coffee.

“Then people are stupid.”

“I see you on Instagram.”

Yuri stiffened and shot him a cold look. “That’s different, ok?”

Viktor gave a soft ‘hmm’ and got up to move some of the empty dishes to the sink.

“Whatever,” Yuri gave an annoyed huff before turning to Yuuri and whispering, albeit a loud whisper, “I really hate it when he does that, just says some simple thing and now you feel dumb.”

Yuuri offered his best smile and nodded. Something about the way the kid spoke alluded to there being more to Viktor. Jumping at the opportunity, he had to ask, “Yuri, you have known Viktor for a long time. What else should I know about him?”

“Well, I’m sure you know the obvious stuff.” He stopped when Yuuri’s surprised face told of his complete ignorance, “You don’t know about him? He only founded the most famous tech company in Russia. I can’t believe you don’t know… just google, ok? Read his Wikipedia or something.”

“How come he hasn't said anything about it?”

Yuri shrugged, uncharacteristic in his noncommittal reply. “I don’t know. I guess it's old news. Maybe he's tired of it.”

Maybe it was the flat tone coming from someone who seemed to have an opinion about everything. Maybe it was the way the teenager seemed to grapple with an idea he encountered but was not yet mature enough to untangle. Somehow Yuuri didn’t quite find the explanation believable. If everyone in the program was based in truth, the romantic, over the top, ever hopeful Viktor must have also existed on some level.

He glanced over his shoulder at the man clearing dishes in the kitchen. Small glints like an occasional ‘wow’ or ‘eh-mazing’ remained, but these were mere shadows, their luster clouded by a pervasive nihilism and somber rationality.

Something must have happened to him. He kept it hidden, same as his office, his cigarettes, his parents. It hurt Yuuri’s heart to think something could be so catastrophic as to change a person in that way.


	6. Chapter 6

The next days began to settle into a rhythm. Viktor drove him to physical therapy in the morning, picked him up at noon. They would grab lunch from the cafe down the street on the way home. Yuuri napped in the afternoon and fiddled with his phone. Sometimes he watched TV, sometimes he called Mari. Viktor would be in this office the entire day, only emerging to walk Makkachin. They would only talk at dinner over takeout, sometimes the conversations extending into the evening.

Yuuri could feel himself gaining strength, moving for longer without having to rest. He was doing so well, his physical therapist said, they could graduate to a walker and begin to walk again soon. If he progressed well on the walker, they would then graduate to a cane. It was a welcome relief to be good at something again.

The only thing that wasn’t progressing was Viktor’s promise. He made no indication they were to begin any work.

Yuuri’s pushes and nudges were polite and tentative. “When can we start? I can sit long enough now if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Of course, Yuuri. We’ll start soon."

The excuses weren't even good. 

"I am missing some hardware. It will take some time to ship here."

"Tomorrow, ok? I still need to do some things to set it up.”

Yuuri scowled a bit, impatience clawing at his heels. He would have called out Viktor for stalling if he didn’t feel guilty at asking for so much already. These days, he felt unfairly reliant on Viktor, who drove him around, helped push his wheelchair, and paid for everything. Torn between feeling thankful and feeling irate that he was put into this position, Yuuri swung between moods.

The machines, he didn’t know how to talk about. The way Viktor treated him like glass, he didn’t want to think about.

But the money, he had to ask.

“Don’t worry. It’s all paid by a national health grant,” Viktor insisted with an easy smile, but Yuuri suspected that to only be a half-truth. This Viktor had a funny habit of smiling only when he was uneasy with what came out of his mouth. Through Mari, Yuuri had learned Viktor made a significant fortune from a company he started. He couldn’t decide whether it was gracious or presumptuous of him to try and hide it.

He tried other ways to keep the topic center, but their conversations always seemed to hit potholes. Yuri Plisetsky was certainly justified in his complaint. The man really did have an annoying habit of witty comebacks that made you feel stupid. 

“Why did you create the program?” He ventured, hoping to settle into the subject another way.

“Because I could. Families were suffering, and I had the power to do something about it. They asked and I answered.”

Yuuri took in the terse response and turned it over inside his mind. It was so dry, so devoid of any passion. Did this person have no feeling at all? The flippant lightness of it triggered a flash of anger. “What about us, the patients? You assume it’s what we want. We don’t ask to be woken up.”

Viktor tilted his head and pushed his food around. His piercing blue eyes were shielded as he lingered over the thought. There were a million excuses he could give, but so few that would feel genuine.

“Well, you don’t ask to be born either.”

A sharp inhale of breath from Yuuri. His jaw tightened, but he remained silent. Of course, he couldn’t expect such a heartless man to say the right things. Setting his fork down, he pushed himself back from the table and began to roll toward his room.

Viktor heaved a sigh and tried to placate him, “Yuuri, stop. I didn’t mean to upset you…”

“I’m done eating.” He was sharp and ruthless with his words, sparing not even a look back.

***

Yuuri wished he had a door to slam.

Soon, he told himself, when he could use a cane they will put all the frames and doors back on.

There was so much he wanted to say, wanted to ask, but he could not figure out the right ways to do so. It was as if they were fire and water.

He moved toward the window, gaze landing at the boxes in the corner of the closet. He’d been curious and opened them against the nagging thought that it was an invasion of his host’s privacy. But why leave boxes in his room if it wasn’t ok to open them?

The boxes were full of clothing: fashionable sportcoats, tailored suits, crisp button-downs. They were expensive and lavish to the touch, a complete world away from the shapeless t-shirts and jeans Viktor now wore. He recognized these items. They hung neatly pressed and beloved in Viktor’s closet in the simulation. A sting of tears came to his eyes when he felt the soft gray sweater Viktor had worn when they were in Barcelona together.

Yuuri so badly wanted to ask why these were stuffed into a box in the spare bedroom closet and not loved like he knew they ought to be.

A knock from the doorway jerked him out of his thoughts.

“Yuuri?” 

Viktor stood just outside, careful to not look into the room. Yuuri rolled his eyes at the effort for privacy. It seemed so silly to pretend when there clearly wasn’t a door, but the gesture tickled a bit of sympathy. Viktor also removed his bedroom door when he didn’t have to. The man was trying so hard after all.

With a long exhale, Yuuri backed up the wheelchair to the doorway and gave him an expectant look.

“We can start tomorrow after lunch,” Viktor tentatively offered, “If you’re up for it.”

Yuuri stared at him for a good moment. That wasn’t so hard, now was it? So why did they have to play this game? 

Not wanting to get into it again, he merely murmured a quiet ‘thanks’.

***

Recording turned out to be quite a production and entirely unlike the night Viktor had plugged him back into the simulation. They spent most of the afternoon talking and planning with no hardware in sight. Yuuri settled in on the couch under the knit blanket with Makkachin asleep at his feet; Viktor perched himself on a stool, a big whiteboard in his hands. Judging from the smudged streaks and shadows of previous writing that refused to be cleaned, the whiteboard was well-loved and frequently used.

“Ok, so we have to do this in a very analytical way, or we will fail to capture what we need. See, think of this as a map of everything important to who you are. We will record the electrical signals of your memories outlined in this plan,” Viktor narrated as he drew a grid on the board in his lap.

Yuuri scrunched his nose. This was an odd way to begin. 

“Why do we need a map? Why not just start with what comes to mind? Isn’t what you think of first what is most important?”

Viktor kept drawing as he replied, “No, we need a map because it is in our nature to have strong memories of being upset. We’ll miss the mundane, the small but important parts.” He stopped for a moment and tapped the marker against his lip. “There is a saying that captures this well. They say that happiness writes white.”

“Happiness writes white?”

“Yes, it doesn’t show up on the page. When you go back to read over the story of your life, the happy parts don’t stand out like the negative things that write black.”

He waited for Yuuri to say something. 

When there was no follow up question, he abruptly shifted and kept going. “Alright, across the X, we divide up years. Start with 1-6, most people don’t remember much that early. 7-10, your elementary years. Then we’ll go by 2.” Viktor rapidly wrote numbers across the top of the grid. Years of life broken into columns.

“Down the Y, we will choose categories that feel important to you. Most of us have standard ones like Parents, Home, School, Friends,” he scribbled as he spoke, outlining the bins that important memories aligned to. “What is important to you, Yuuri?”

Yuuri was too busy still contemplating the previous topic. He thought back to his last weeks and found it was indeed difficult to pick out the good parts, the joy. There were moments of light; he intellectually knew the small delights and triumphs, but all he could feel and touch was a cloud of darkness. He supposed it was true.

“What is important to you, Yuuri?” Viktor repeated, crouching down to be at eye level.

The earnest look of softness in his blue eyes jerked Yuuri back into the present.

“Um...Skating,” he replied softly.

“Of course!” Viktor turned around and wrote the word down on the next row.

A slight blush of embarrassment lit his face. “And...Food.”

_Katsudon is for winners, Yuuri._

“Eh?”

“I have a lot of memories around certain foods,” he forced out past the knot in his throat.

Viktor nodded rapidly and added a row for food. “We can keep going, but the idea is that we will go through these boxes one at a time and you will try your best to replay the memory of anything that comes to mind in that box. So here, Age 7-10, Skating. Once we’ve recorded that, we will go on to the next, Age 7-10, Food. Of course, we can jump around too, memory is not linear like this. But we’ll do one box a day, so it is not overwhelming.”

Yuuri looked at the board and felt a chill of awe. An entire life stuffed into a series of little boxes. It made perfect sense that this is how it would work, but the cold analytical reduction hurt on some level. Yuuri Katsuki, 48 boxes of memories, like a catalog order. Check them all and you have a person.

“Yuuri?”

Lost in thought again, he didn’t notice Viktor’s call.

“Do you have questions?”

Still no answer. 

Viktor placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “We don’t have to do this if you are not comfortable. You can change your mind at any time and we’ll stop.”

Startling at the touch, Yuuri blinked back his haze of thoughts. He felt the pull of his desires sweep away whatever hesitation he had. This was how he would feel the rip of blades against ice, of warm touches in bed, of rings, glinting in winter rays of sun. “No, I want this,” he adamantly stated, “I want to get started. Will you see what I am thinking?”

“No,” Viktor answered wistfully, “Your memories are for you alone. I can only see output charts of electrical signals.”

Yuuri’s brows knitted together at this. “Then how do you know we’ve done it right? What if I can’t remember every important thing?”

Viktor patted Yuuri on the shoulder and then went back to the board. He started dotting spots on the bottom blank space. “The way these memories are integrated, your brain also does not use every single second of memory. It does not store things that way. You can think of this like a pointillism painting. We will place many spots, but the machine will smooth the gaps and connect them just like your mind does. It is not the details as much as the shape of it that matters.

“They say you can recreate any human voice from a recording of only 40 words. A small amount of data can approximate with very high fidelity. We will test fidelity by asking the copy questions. I will ask you the question, and we’ll compare your answer to his. If they are all the same answers, you are functionally the same. And on the final day,” he paused from his drawing. “The final day, we record you as you go. So the final memory you have is of your last moment here. It will feel seamless, as though you fell asleep here and woke up there.”

“But when I wake in there, I won’t really be alive anymore…” He trailed off.

Viktor fidgeted with the marker, uncapping it and capping it again. “I suppose not. But you can say you would be alive enough. You will sleep, you will make new memories, you will do all the same things anyone who is alive will do.”

The collection of dots on the board formed the semblance of an image. It was not a work of art, but the form was unmistakable.

“It’s Makkachin,” Yuuri mumbled, smiling at the brown puddle of fluff at his feet.

Hearing her name, the dog perked up and lifted her head. Viktor couldn’t help but hop down from his stool and scratched her head. When she rolled over to beg for more, he gave a smile and remarked. “Mmm, it is a nice day today. Want to take a break and go on a walk, Yuuri?”

“That sounds great.” He could use a break.

***

“Amazing! There is a new cafe!”

Viktor’s mercurial attention was constantly pulled to random things around them: the budding chartreuse leaves of maples and the number of cracks in the sidewalk he’d not noticed before pushing a wheelchair.

Drawing power from her owner, Makkachin also became excited and wagged her tail every time he pointed anything out. She pulled at the leash in Yuuri’s hands and tried to veer toward the storefront and its tree-lined patio.

“Don’t let her bully you,” Viktor chided, “You’ll spoil her.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. If anyone spoiled the dog, it certainly wasn’t him. They strolled to an intersection, and Viktor settled down to sit on a sidewalk bench. He pulled something out of his vest pocket, a vape pen, and turned to Yuuri for approval, “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Go ahead,” Yuuri replied. He eyed the pen curiously. “What happened to your cigarettes. Are you trying to quit?”

Viktor laughed as he blew out a cloud of steamy vapor. “Of course not. I know you hate the smell so I thought I’d try my best to not be annoying,” he explained lightly before adding, “People become addicted to things because they want to. It fills a hole in their life.”

“And what are you looking to fill?” Yuuri regarded him with an air of evaluation.

Turning, the man smirked bitterly, “Haven’t you ever tried to change only to find that you’re frustrating the same as before?”

Sensing he wasn’t going to get any further, Yuuri changed the subject. “Why do you wear that vest? It’s not really your style.”

“This?” Viktor looked down at the black quilted vest and shrugged, “An investor gave it to me. It’s more work to get rid of it than to just wear it. How do you know I don’t like it? Patagonia vest is the new tech uniform, very on-trend right now.”

This was the opening chance.

“I’ve seen the clothes in the closet. You don’t like clothes like this,” he observed, “I know you prefer a tailored coat. I know you like your tie to be no more than 7.3cm wide, that you call people who don’t appreciate fashion farmers.”

Viktor’s face darkened. He took a drag of the vape stiffly and leaned back against the iron bars of the bench. He folded his arms, a faraway look in his eyes. Yuuri could tell from the lines in his face that he was ready to strike with one of his pithy, biting comebacks. 

To his surprise, Viktor shook it off, “So what?” He leaned forward close to Yuuri and practically purred in a low voice, “Is there something you want to see me in, Yuuri? You don’t have to be so coy. All you have to do is ask.”

“Vitya…” Yuuri’s face immediately flushed bright red. 

Viktor pulled back and laughed. Flipping the pen between his fingers, he winked and grabbed Makkachin’s leash. 

“We’ll be right back after a quick run around the block. This lazy girl needs some exercise.”

Relieved to be alone, Yuuri watched them disappear around the trees. His heart was thumping against his ribs, ignited by their sudden closeness. Good riddance, that was embarrassing. He chalked it up to his longing to go home; a false flame that lit his want for the Viktor who loved him.

Now and then, he could hear Makkachin’s bark and see a flash of Viktor’s silvery hair weaving in and out of the trees. He thought of all the little things Viktor tried to do to accommodate him. The doors, the vape, the ugly recliner in the living room that he tried to convince Yuuri was not solely bought for his comfort. They all spoke of the kindness wrapped under an aloof surface in Viktor. Yuuri leaned back and gazed up into the wide-open sky.

Wisps of clouds drifted against the crisp blue sky. Blue like Viktor’s eyes. Blue like his favorite blazer. 

The realization hit him that perhaps their conversations never really got anywhere because Yuuri was the one who entered them with a combative mindset. He suddenly felt ashamed of how he was treating Viktor, punishing him for not being a person he may or may not used to be.

When Viktor returned, out of breath and stammering through heavy puffs that maybe he was the one who needed exercise, Yuuri took his hand and brushed over the palm with his thumbs. These hands were foreign to his touch, rough from tinkering with hardware.

“This is long overdue. I’m sorry for being so difficult. And...thank you.”

Viktor smiled, a different expression than the easy, fake smiles he sometimes flashed. It looked a bit strange, rusty from disuse.

“You don’t need to say that to me, Yuuri.”

“But I want to.”

***

In the lobby, Viktor chatted with Igor the doorman. Apparently, there was a large package he needed to go into the mailroom for. He handed Yuuri Makkachin’s leash and the house key and told him to go up first. Riding the elevator alone was a strange experience, but one that Yuuri welcomed. It was his first bit of independence. He patted Makkachin on the head and smiled when she opened her mouth and seemed to grin.

When the door opened to their floor, he found himself blocked by a young girl with red hair looking to enter the elevator car. 

“Mila!” He blurted out without a thought.

“Do I know you?” The girl gave him a bewildered look before stepping aside to let him out.

Yuuri grimaced and nervously tried to think of an excuse. This was painfully awkward; of course this real-life Mila didn’t know him. When she moved to the threshold of the elevator, Makkachin ran forward and jumped up, front paws on the girl’s red joggers.

“Oh! Makkachin!”

Mila ruffled the poodle’s furry cheeks and laughed when she got a lick. 

“You must be Vitya’s friend.”

Straining an awkward smile, Yuuri reached out a hand. Thank goodness for Makkachin. “Yes yes, he told me about you. I’m Yuuri.”

The girl shook his hand lightly and beamed, “My mom and I are that door over there.” She pointed at the apartment diagonal to Viktor’s. “It’s good to see Vitya with friends; he’s always so lonely.”

Her words piqued Yuuri’s curiosity. “Do you know him well?”

Mila tapped her chin and guessed, “I guess, outside of the things they say, you know. We moved in four years ago, so I like to think we are friends by now. He lets me walk Makkachin sometimes. Yes, you are the sweetest girl, yes you are!” She ran her fingers through the dog’s thick curly fur when it nudged its face against her hand.

“Has he always been alone?”

Wracking her memory, Mila's eyes turned upward. “I think so. There was this man in the very beginning. He had very funny curly hair; my mom used to make fun of it. But I haven’t seen him in years. Are you and him…?”

“Ah, no no no!” Yuuri waved his hands frantically. “We just work together.”

“Oh.” She almost sounded disappointed. 

The elevator buzzed, indicating the door had been open and idle too long. Mila rushed into it and pushed the open button. The elevator kept buzzing, doors shutting with a slow drag. 

“Oh no, it looks like it wants to go down. It was nice to meet you, Yuuri!” She shouted out through the vanishing gap. Before Yuuri could respond with even a wave, all that was left was closed metal doors.

_Outside of the things they say..._

Yuuri wheeled himself to the door and fiddled with the key. Yuri Plisetsky had also alluded to such. Yet Viktor didn’t act like a famous person, and certainly, no one around him behaved all that odd. He’d not wanted to look online out of respect, choosing to instead wait for Viktor to share. He knew from experience that the internet was rife with unsolicited and barely true stories. Figure skating sites were filled with all sorts of strange commentary about him.

The more Viktor dodged, the more Yuuri wanted to know. But the man stubbornly refused to give, and curiosity was starting to eat away at Yuuri’s resolve.


	7. Chapter 7

They began recording the next day.

Yuuri settled into the ugly recliner that was comfortable but extremely out of place next to the modern, stylish furniture. The area around it was covered in equipment: wires, cables, boxes of blinking lights and buttons. He wondered if this was a metaphorical image of the human mind too, a messy series of links plugged into one another, sending electric pulses back and forth.

Viktor had his laptop propped up on the strange coat rack chair, on top of a stack of textbooks. A variety of cables hung from the coat rack spikes, keeping them from tangling. Meticulously, Viktor plugged cables into holes which then led to more cables into more holes, following some mental map. It was rather baffling to watch. They all looked the same to Yuuri.

After what seemed forever, Viktor picked up a bundle of wires and turned to Yuuri.

“Ok, we will start early for foundations. Skating, ages 1-6,” Viktor reminded, setting the electrode array against Yuuri’s head. It surrounded him like a heavy hat. “Remember whatever you can, in any order it comes to mind. Replay the general memory. I will ask you questions, but you don’t have to tell me any answers. The questions are just for you to hold details in your mind. It is important to keep the thoughts whole: sounds, smells, feelings, words, all of it.”

“Ok. I’m ready,” Yuuri confirmed.

Viktor handed Yuuri the blindfold and sat down on the ground cross-legged. Darkness was supposed to help his mind from wandering.

"Ok, let's test the connectivity. Can you imagine Makkachin?"

"Um, ok?" Yuuri pulled the fluffy poodle up in his mind. Her tail wag, excited jump, whimper and whine when there was human food she wanted.

The click of laptop keys permeated the space. Viktor murmured as he surveyed the electrophysiology signals, "Alright, seems to be working ok. Clear your mind and just take in a deep breath. No thoughts, just focus on the feeling of breathing for a few counts." The readings dropped, etching small spikes in various traces. He recorded the baseline noise.

“Alright, Yuuri. We are all set. Don't rush, just let your mind drift a little. What is the first time you went skating?”

“I was four. We were at the rink in Hasetsu for Mari’s learn to skate class. My parents wouldn’t let me go on the ice because I was too small. So I cried until they said yes.” He said into the liminal space of transitions between now and then, the image of the building swimming into his mind’s view.

“Good, Yuuri. Now, remember, you don’t have to tell me everything. Just play it in your mind for me.”

Four. Heavy things on his feet. The excitement of getting to join Mari. He could remember the kids in Mari’s class seeming so much older, so cool in the way they zipped across the ice. They crashed into the barriers, unable to stop, laughing as they grasped at each other for balance.

Yuuri remembered the ice under his feet for the first time, the slippering strangeness of it. He’d fallen immediately, but it wasn’t scary. It was fun to slide around it. A grown-up picked him up and held his hands as he tried to walk, skate blades slipping like chopsticks on a place of grease. He laughed.

“Come catch me,” Mari had taunted, gliding away.

“Most kids cry their first time.” He vaguely could hear someone saying.

“Well, Yuuri is special then.”

Special, that’s what the ice was. The place where he knew he was special.

“What sounds do you remember?” Viktor’s voice cut through the memory.

Scratches. Scrapes. Laughter. Claps. The sensation of cold, rough patches when it’d been too long between resurfacing. 

“I want to hear the tap when you put your foot down. Yes, just stomp down like you’re mad!”

Tap, glide, tap, glide. Gradually, they turned into the rumbling rips of blades on an edge when he leaned left or right. The shift of weight from one hip to the other, pressure under his feet building and building until it released in a stream of ice granules that sent him forward. 

“Yes! We want to hear the sound of each stroke. You’re doing so well!”

Mari liked to skate toward him so fast. So fast he thought they’d crash. But every time, she would lean into an aggressive hockey stop at the last minute, sending a spray of snow in his face. He pretended to be mad so she’d do it again and again.

He remembered skating as fast as he could, falling, getting back up, and trying again. He’d chase, but he could never catch her. He was better at crossovers than her. Better at turns. Then backward, then steps. Mari didn’t care about any of those things. She barely wanted to try tricks, she just wanted to fly.

Memory after memory jumped around in his mind. Specific moments on the ice, the crisp smell of the rink air right after resurfacing. It was all interlaced with the feeling of momentum, movement, delight. He was lost in the vast sea of white ice day after day, laces tightening, loosening, loving hands helping take boots on and off. There was no goal, there was only the promise of more time.

Before he knew it, Viktor spoke to him again.

“Yuuri, you can stop. We are done for today. You can take the blindfold off.”

He kept his eyes closed. Not quite believing it, he asked, “How do you know we’re done?”

Viktor gently lifted the fabric from his face.

“Because I can see the same signals we’ve already recorded coming through. You are looping the same thoughts again.”

“Huh…”

He let Viktor continue to take the equipment off. The blindfold was last. As the room flooded into view, memories turned to dust.

“Don’t be alarmed. You did great! It feels like no time has passed, but look at the clock!”

To his surprise, two hours had already passed. It seemed only like a blink. Giving him a knowing look, Viktor chuckled, “Surprising, I know. Revisiting our past never feels like long, but before you know it, you’ve burned your entire day. Have you ever cleaned your room and then spent the entire afternoon reading or reminiscing about old things? It feels like you just sat down, but really you have been sitting for hours. It is like that.”

Yuuri pushed himself up and stretched his tired back. That was certainly true. He pulled an arm over his head to force blood to flow back into it. He didn’t remember saying much to Viktor, but he did answer some questions verbally. It brought a strange sensation of imbalance that he could reveal much about himself.

“After all this, I feel like you’ll know so much about me, but I know so little about you.” Well, that wasn’t exactly true, “The real you. I don’t know you at all.”

Viktor set the array down on the ground and considered it, “Ok, well, then... you can ask me one question a day and I will promise to answer truthfully.”

Truth was tantalizing like elixir. He considered Viktor’s offer and pondered all the things he’d never found the right moments to ask. To know one was to know the other, right? He thought of the Viktor in his heart who always danced as if no one was looking, with such life in his extension and articulation that he always looked to be moving even in mere photographs. The sway of his long hair gorgeous and affecting...

“Did you really have long hair?”

“Ha! Starting right away I see. Yes, of course, that was my real hair! My mother used to scold me as a teenager for all the hair everywhere in the bathroom. I have to show you my passport. The photo is from when I was younger.”

He pushed himself upright, grimacing at the pop of his knees before running into his office. A second later, he ran back to Yuuri, holding the passport open to the first page, he extended it to Yuuri and sheepishly complained, “I’m afraid it’s worse than I remembered. You must give me your word to not make fun of me.” He held the passport out of reach until Yuuri grumbled out a pledge.

When Yuuri opened the little booklet, he immediately laughed. 

“Yuuri! You said you wouldn’t!”

The passport photo was of a much younger Viktor, his long silvery hair tucked behind his ears. Somehow, the camera had managed to catch him a millisecond too early after the flash, and his eyelids were not yet fully out of a blink. The result was he looked half asleep. 

Yuuri kept giggling at the ridiculous image and huffed between laughs, “I’m not. It’s just very...unexpected. They didn’t let you use a better photo?”

Viktor made a wilting gesture and sighed deeply, “Alas, the very glamorous photo I brought did not fit their dimension requirements. Something about my forehead being too prominent. Can you believe that? They made me take this one on the spot and then refused to redo it because the line behind me was so long. Russian bureaucracy is terrible like that.” He snatched the passport back and lamented, “There are still three years until I can renew it and get a new one. I hope my hairline doesn’t recede by then...”

Still smiling, Yuuri moved on to the question that was really on his mind. “Why did you cut your hair?”

Viktor narrowed his eyes and lightly challenged, “I thought we had agreed to one question a day?” When Yuuri opened his mouth to protest, he yielded, “But ok, first day, I will be generous and give you a pass.

“It was when I was just beginning to run a startup. I was pitching for venture capital back in the day, and I just wasn’t getting anywhere. I could get to the table, but I could never close the deal. Every single time, they would not give me anything. And I realized it was because my hair was a spectacle, and no one could see me under it. These old men just saw a kid who was just a punk. I was tired of not being taken seriously.”

“That’s awful that you had to change who you were.”

“No, I don’t see it like that. You are always perceived by others to be a certain way. You can either take control of that perception, or you can be a victim of it. I could have complained and said it wasn’t fair, but what good would that have done? I was honest with myself. I wanted respect from them, and I had no interest in being a martyr for my vanity.”

“What about now? Do you think you’ll grow it out again?”

“Of course not,” Viktor grinned as he tossed the passport back into his office. “I have gotten spoiled by the luxury of not having my drains clogged every other week.” 

***

The days seem to fly by once they began in earnest. 

The white board recording grid was like a calendar. Each box was a day Yuuri marked down, counting the time left until he could return to the place he was meant to be. Life was easier with this structure. It was comfortable to march ahead knowing he had a purpose each day, not too hurried, not too bored.

In fact, he almost found it pleasant in some ways. He’d finally gotten to the point of using a walker and could awkwardly walk a few labored steps. His physical therapist noted his progress was extraordinary and encouraged him to push harder--he may be able to walk with only a cane soon. At his insistence, Viktor put all the door frames and doors back up. Not being the greatest with carpentry, he’d hammered extra dents in some and not quite set others back perfectly. But Yuuri didn’t mind. It was a bit endearing each time he had to shove his bedroom door extra hard to get it to shut.

They’d gone through the early years, revisiting memories of Hatsetsu, his family, Minako. The thought of leaving them left a twinge in his heart, but it wasn’t leaving in the definition of the word. He would still have them, only they would not have him. At times he grew very silent afterward, feeling guilty after witnessing their love and care. But how much had he truly been with them even, physically so away these past years?

Best leave it as is.

Each day, Viktor asked Yuuri if he wanted to continue and offered that they could stop if he changed his mind. It was so much like clockwork that it had become almost a joke. “Do you want to keep going? Changing your mind is ok. You don’t have to do this just because you said yes yesterday,” Viktor would say. 

“Ask me again tomorrow,” Yuuri would always reply with a flippant smirk.”

Sometimes he entertained the notion for a fleeting second but declined when the ache to be whole and loved again radiated from his chest. It was impossible to count the number of things he wanted to return to, was homesick for. He’d make the trade for love and life, always.

Yuuri wanted to push ahead, finish as soon as they could, but Viktor would not budge about taking the weekends off.

“Even Vladimir Putin takes days off,” he protested. “We should go out to some famous places. We can’t have you in St. Petersburg and not go to iconic places like the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Then when the look of it makes you hungry for ice cream, we’ll go to Eliseyev Emporium for the greatest ice cream you’ve ever eaten.” Seeing Yuuri’s confused look, he waved it away and said, “You’ll understand when you see it.”

“But Makkachin…”

“Makkachin will go hang out with Mila today!”

Rolling his eyes, Yuuri grudging agreed. He didn’t want to say what was really on the tip of his tongue. He could do all these things with his Viktor in the simulation. But that was being rather unfair...the weather was admittedly nice now, and he did want to try to walk outside even if it was only for a few steps at a time.

As they prepared to go on their first excursion, Yuuri wondered if it even mattered. He could see familiarity in the way Viktor talked excitedly about his plans, fluttering from description to description as he folded the wheelchair and leaned it by the door. Would it be anything different if he did the same trip again? He suspected maybe not.

“Can I still ask you a question today?”

Viktor leaned back and blinked. “I guess if you want.”

Yuuri wheeled himself to the entryway where the other man was rooting around for his keys. Once he found his keys in the depth of a mail pile in the credenza bowl, he slumped back on the entryway bench and put his shoes on. “Ask away, Yuuri.”

Fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt, Yuuri hesitated and stammered, “What...I mean...which. I don’t know how better to word it, but why did you leave a lot of yourself out of the simulation?” 

“I already told you before...”

Interrupting, Yuuri clarified, “Don’t say it’s all just for the patient to fill in gaps. I know that’s not the whole answer. You didn’t have to leave out silly things like what kind of clothes you wear now.”

Viktor furrowed his brow as he pulled on the second shoe. As he tied the laces, he inhaled a long breath and made a troubled face. He seemed to want to run away.

“I guess you can say that I wanted to create the best version of myself. You can’t control what people see in life, and it’s very hard to resist the chance to try. I didn’t want to include the parts that I thought were bad or unlikable. Does that make me shallow?”

Yuuri shook his head and sat down on the walker. How many times had he also wished for the same thing? He was always trying to present himself as more confident, friendlier, less anxious, and less crazy. It hadn’t occurred to him that it would be possible to edit yourself and design who you wished to be. If he’d known, he probably would have done the same.

His lingering gaze settled downward, on Viktor’s uncomfortable grimace, and he found it unexpected that he had to acknowledge he’d been wrong after all. How strange to think this sullen person wanted to present himself as bright, hopeful, goofy, and impulsive; a perfect optimist. It came as no surprise he fell in love. How could someone not love an impossibly wonderful being curated to be the sum of all that a person thought was good?

Reaching out, he poked at the hair whorl in Viktor’s hair. It brought the same warmth and adoration as when he thought of his Viktor. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but at this moment, he felt his heart quiver in the same way it did when he skated hand in hand with Viktor, riding the swell and crash of magnificent waves. However, under the tides was a bitter undertone in his realization. There was one fundamental difference: this Viktor didn’t love him and didn’t see him as anything other than a broken patient.

Viktor reached up to cover his hair with a startled breath.

Pushing the bitter thought aside, Yuuri chided, “You’re an idiot.”

Indignant, Viktor exclaimed, “What? Yuuri, I just answered a very personal question. Why would you be so mean!?”

Standing up and turning toward the door, Yuuri looked back at him with a grin. 

“Because you were wrong, Vitya. I see those parts you left out, and I still like you just fine.”

***

In the evening, Viktor stayed up late into the night long after Yuuri went to bed. He couldn’t sleep. 

He leaned in his office chair, feet on his desk, mulling over an email he’d gotten while they were out. This was expected, but he’d forgotten much of the outside world these days, his world taken over by Yuuri.

> _From: Msveiteryte@ckrb.ru_
> 
> _Subject: New trial patient request_

In between back and forth with Yuuri about if Violet ice cream was just purple vanilla or if violet was a flavor, he’d made the mistake of looking at his phone. It hung on his mind the rest of the day, sullying the memory of a wonderful time.

The requested patient was a young girl, only eighteen. She’d been the victim of an awful crime, assaulted on her way home from a party. The police had no leads, and she laid in a coma from a brick to the head. It had already been many weeks since she was stabilized in the hospital. They could see brain activity, but no signs of waking. There was no medical explanation for her lack of progress.

Viktor wavered over the case. He’d normally take it without further thought. It had all the signals of a good candidate: a young girl with a long life ahead, reasonable performance status, parents who loved her, doctors who wanted to care for her. Beyond all that, it was a case where she was a victim who deserved better.

He tapped the keyboard lightly, preparing to reply but yet unable to commit to words. His deepest hope for patients was always that they could enjoy the liberties of an open-ended fate, that the circumstances of their awakening were opportunities rather than encumbrances.

Yet what if she had suffered damage to her visual cortex and woke up blind? What if there was damage to language, and she found herself trapped in silence? What if she woke up physically fine but emotionally damaged and eternally fearful of a perpetrator who still roamed free? Was that really a good outcome?

One by one, he poured over the patient’s charts and data for trace hints of what would emerge in time as the plot of her life ahead. There was therapy, effort, support of loved ones, yes, but one phrase from Yuuri rang in his head.

_We don’t ask to be woken up._

The simple truth was everyone gets to be here and everyone must go; there’s no choice on either end, subject to voluntary acts of other people. It wasn’t his place to take away what little choices did exist in between. A person, even while sleeping in their own mind, has a finely attuned radar system for the reality of their condition. While they may not be able to articulate a line of logic, intuition guides what they perceive to want. It was her choice and he didn’t want to be in the business of interfering with free will. 

Viktor sighed and tapped out a reply.

> _Thank you for the referral. Unfortunately, the trial has closed. Apologies for the lack of notice, but no more patients can be accepted. The program ran into unexpected adverse reactions and is being decommissioned._
> 
> _Best wishes to the patient and family. I hope she is able to recover._
> 
> _Dr. Nikiforov_

He hit the send button and closed the window. 

It was better left to chance. If the girl wanted to live, she would wake on her own in time.


	8. Chapter 8

“Okay, time to test fidelity a bit. Yuuri, what gift would you give your mother for her birthday?”

Yuuri thought for a moment then replied, “I would make dinner for her. She is always caring for everyone else, so I would want to give her a day where she wouldn’t have to worry about doing anything. I would make her favorite dishes and make sure I clean the kitchen afterward.”

Viktor typed the same question as a prompt to the virtual copy. It spat back a similar answer. The wording was a bit different, lunch instead of dinner, but it was getting close. Perhaps there was some unrecorded memory of Yuuri gaining more competence with cooking and the copy could only make lunch at this point.

“What about your father, Yuuri. You don’t talk much about him. Is there anything else you want to record about him?”

Yuuri looked down at his feet.

When he was young, he spoke to his father about shoes once. Toshiya always wore the same pair of leather loafers. He wore the soles out and replaced them religiously. Yuuri could not imagine why anyone would ever want to choose an old pair of leather loafers over something brand new. The novelty of new things seemed the only reasonable thing to want.

But now as Yuuri looked over at his orthopedic shoes by the door, he couldn’t help but understand his father finally. They were new, they were expensive, but he didn’t want them. All he wanted was the comfort of a pair that had formed themselves exactly to his feet in perfection. His eyes felt hot as he thought of his father, of those worn shoes he’d made faces at and scorned.

“Is something wrong, Yuuri?”

Yuuri gave a watery smile and replied, “No, it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Yes. I just...I thought of something I want to record. Is that ok? It’s not on the board, but I really want to remember it.”

Viktor gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and murmured, “Of course.”

***

Yuuri woke from the recording session with an itch in his mind. He was like a leaf in the wind, agitated by the intense breeze of curiosity. After putting away the equipment, he finally pulled the courage to ask, “What about your parents, Vitya? You don’t talk about them much.”

Viktor pressed his lips into a thin line. Normally, he could give the indulgence of Yuuri’s other personal questions, but this one was not one he wanted to answer. “There’s not much to say. I don’t really want to talk about them.” 

Not satisfied, Yuuri pressed, “You promised to answer one question a day. This is my question today.”

A heavy sigh escaped Viktor’s lips as he kept typing at the computer. Once he finished his typing, he squared his shoulders and kept staring at the screen. He answered almost mechanically, “Well, my father disappeared when I was very young. And my mother was very sad from then on. Most people have detailed memories of their childhood, but I can recall hardly anything. All I can remember was just her being very sad.”

“Disappeared?”

“He went to work one day and never came home.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago. It happened to many people in the Party. The early 90s were a difficult time in this country. There was a lot of political infighting, a lot of secrecy, and purges. It is behind us, mostly.” He spoke with striking stoicism, like a historian lecturing a class.

This loss was mysterious, unsettling, non-binary. Unlike witnessed death, it had no conventions. No cards and condolences, no shared display of mourning to serve as a tombstone to settle the shaken ground. No one spoke of it, and no one could answer his questions. All he knew was the beast of the unknown hovering over their burden. Papa who departed physically but was ever-present in their minds.

Yuuri’s voice broke through the haze of feelings. “You mentioned before that your mother is still alive.”

Leaning back in his chair, Viktor looked at the ceiling and replied simply, “She’s in a facility. She, unfortunately, requires more care than I can give.”

“Do you visit often?”

Viktor remained quiet. He hadn’t visited in over a year. 

“No,” he admitted with downcast eyes.

“Why not?”

It was impossible for him to articulate the inertia that kept him from going. The stale smell of desperation in that place and his shame of putting her there had a part. But more powerful was the specter of mysterious loss creeping into his life a second time like a devastating tide, threatening to sweep away what little he’d managed to collect. Mama who is physically present, but her mind departed to another world. 

He supposed this was the grand composer of his life’s soundtrack, the phenomenon called repetition compulsion. All that he chose to pursue were simply replays of this same problem: people trapped within between states. It wasn’t that he reveled in the unknown of ambiguous loss, or that he liked seeing anyone this way, but rather he felt compelled each time to try and master that which had left him utterly helpless as a child.

Sensing he’d not get an answer, Yuuri offered instead, “Can we go visit her? I’d love to meet your inspiration.”

Viktor scowled. The word ‘no’ sat on the tip of his tongue, ready to spring out. But he remembered his mission, his mandate to fix what he’d broken. He was burning time. Half the board was already marked done. 

He took in Yuuri’s pleading gaze, so earnest in its innocent desire. Convince Yuuri. Give Yuuri what he wants.

“It’s not far. I guess we can go next week.” He reluctantly relented.

***

The trip to the hospital began with Yuuri insisting that it was extremely unfilial for Viktor to not visit. That type of thing would never happen in Japan. He was annoyed at first at the suggestion--how could Yuuri pass judgment when he was doing something far worse to his own parents? But the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if Yuuri was correct and that it was heartless of him to have stayed away.

So there they were, in the parking lot of the hospital. He’d helped Yuuri out of the car and into his wheelchair but found himself glued to the spot, unable to step toward the door.

“Vitya?”

“I just can’t. I can’t do this.”

“Oh.”

He started at the door and fidgeted with his nails, running his fingertips over the cuticles and feeling every rough, uneven spot repeatedly. This was how it always started. If he stood there long enough, he’ll pick and tear at them until his hands are raw and bleeding. “I don’t think I can go in.”

“She’ll be glad to see you, I’m sure.” Yuuri grabs his hands, interrupting the fidgeting.

“She won’t even recognize me.”

“We’ll just have a nice visit with a nice lady then.”

Viktor swallowed the knot in his throat and tentatively pushed the wheelchair toward the hospital entrance.

***

Yuuri wasn’t sure what to expect, the android in the office sat in an uncanny valley and never really felt like a real person. 

He recognized Elena the moment they arrived at her room. It wasn’t that she looked all that like her machine double or even Viktor; she didn’t. But her presence was extraordinarily familiar. The elderly woman had steel grey eyes, long white hair, and features that were just a bit far apart for her face to be truly beautiful. Unlike Viktor, her face was stern and square. But traces of Viktor echoed so obviously in her that Yuuri instantly understood this was the source of his grace and presence. They held their jaw in the same poised way, tilted their head with identical curiosity.

“Mama,” Viktor said softly as he rapped on the door for her attention.

The elderly woman turned in her chair and stared at him for a moment. Recognition flooded her face, and she gave him a wide smile and padded over for a kiss. “Ah, miliy! You are finally here! I have waited so long for you to come.”

“Mama,” his lip trembled as he continued, “It’s Vitya.”

They say a few more words in clipped exchange. Yuuri could not understand Russian, but he felt his heartache when he looked up to see Viktor’s pained expression. Maybe it was a bad idea after all.

“She never recognizes me,” Viktor whispered to him, “She thinks I’m my father.”

“Who is your friend, Piotr?”

Viktor pushed the wheelchair closer so Yuuri could extend a hand. “This is Yuuri. We...work together. He doesn’t speak Russian, so you’ll have to try your English.”

Her face lit up at the suggestion, “Ah wonderful! I have not been able to practice English in a long time. It is nice to meet you, Yuuri. It is so rare to get visitors these days. Are you going to stay awhile?”

Yuuri looked up to Viktor, unsure of how to respond. But Viktor was lost in his private thoughts, eyes distant and drifting.

“It is nice to meet you too. I’d love to keep you company.”

“Good,” she nodded as she got up and rearranged some random items on the dresser, “It is a mess here. You’ll have to excuse me, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“It looks very neat to me,” Yuuri replied.

“You are too kind!” Elena chirped as she continued to push around combs, toothbrushes, and other personal items. Her hands moved with tremors of age. “You must tell me in advance before you come again, I will have to clean up next time.”

“It is my fault to intrude. We’ll call next time.”

“Good good. Piotr, come help me tidy up. Are they finally done with all that auditing at the office?”

Viktor stiffly made his way over and stood in silence as he watched his mother fuss. She stopped and gave him an expectant look before muttering something to him in rapid Russian. Viktor nodded and merely replied a stiff, “Yes, mama.”

“Do not compare me to your mother!”

They settled down at the small table in the corner. He returned to Yuuri’s side and said, “She wants us to tell her about how work is going.”

“Oh. Well, I guess we could? We’ll make it up.”

Viktor rolled his eyes with disdain. “This is ridiculous, Yuuri. We shouldn’t indulge her in her delusions.” He whispered bitterly. 

He whispered back, “It seems to make her happy. It’s just a game. Isn’t that all you can ask for?”

Viktor scowled and said nothing further as they played along in the charade. His mood seemed to storm from bad to worse as he sat silently watching Yuuri and his mother chatter away at the little table. “Such a charming young man! You’ll get better and be back on your feet in no time. You are young, your body will heal like water!” Elena exclaimed, “I can’t believe you used to be a dancer! My cousin is a dancer too, you know. Have you seen the Eifman production of Giselle? She was marvelous in that.”

Yuuri let her reminisce, jumping from topic to topic, following her to non-sequiturs when her mind lost the thread of its memory. 

***

The car ride back was tense. Yuuri wondered what he’d done wrong. Elena seemed to have a good time asking Yuuri about himself. He got the impression it was the first time anyone had played along and not corrected her about reality. Viktor was less than pleased, judging by the way he hardened his jaw and drove in silence.

“I thought that went well. I don’t know what I was expecting. Your mother is very kind,” Yuuri offered, breaking the silence.

“No, it didn't go well. That was not mama. She’s not going to get better playing make-believe everything is fine and it’s 1994 and there’s an audit in the ministry of finance. You shouldn’t indulge her like that, it doesn’t help her. She will never get better that way.”

Yuuri frowned at the harsh tone and bites back with an equally spiteful note, “I don’t think Alzheimer’s is something you get better from.”

“What did you just say?” Viktor took his eyes off the road and stared daggers.

“I said, she’s likely not getting better. I don’t think it’s right to treat her like that. You shouldn’t correct her when she says something wrong--that hurts her feelings. She’s still a person, and it’s not fair to treat her coldly just because she isn’t who you want her to be.” Arms crossed, Yuuri was unfazed and merely glared back.

“Well, you’re wrong, Yuuri. You’re being difficult just like you always are. I can figure this out!” He slapped the steering wheel forcefully, “I know I can fix this. There’s no such thing as a problem that can’t be solved. If you can’t figure it out, you’re just not being smart enough.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes and flippantly replied, “Now that is delusional! You’re not going to cure Alzheimer’s single-handedly with your computer in your office.”

“Why not? I’ve done more improbable things with my computer, in my office. Lest you forget, everyone thought you were going to be a vegetable and I woke you up!” Viktor was practically shouting at this point, his anger manifesting in the rise in speed with which they were going down the road. The car rumbled and protested, leading Yuuri to grip the door for support.

Yuuri drew in a sharp breath and held it. He tried to not respond with something he couldn’t take back later. “It’s just...not. Vitya, I’m not saying you’re not smart enough. You just should be spending your effort on being with her as she is now instead of trying to invent a fix. She’s not broken, she’s just different. Why do you ask so much of technology and so little of yourself?”

“It’s my mother! You can’t possibly understand!”

This part agitated Yuuri enough that he turned and began to shout too. Taking it personally was one thing, but this was another level.

“I don’t understand?! I understand very well! You can just smell the boredom and despair in that place. I’ve sat alone in a hospital before. It’s like a prison there. How can she get any better if all she does is sit in her room all day and watch TV? What she needs is movement and surprise, a bit of life and love around her. You can’t guarantee you’ll find a fix, but you can give her those things!”

Having said his mind, Yuuri turned to the window and refused to turn back. He didn’t have to look to know that Viktor was fuming.

A tense moment settled in before Viktor finally said in a measured tone, “This is none of your business, Yuuri, and I don’t appreciate your judgment and commentary. I’m not discussing this with you any further.”

They spent the rest of the trip in silence. When they arrived home, Viktor immediately went into his office and shut the door loudly behind him. Hours later, Yuuri warmed up some leftover takeout and knocked on the door, and asked if wanted any. There was no reply. He ate dinner alone in the kitchen and wondered if this was a line too far.

It felt as if they’d taken a wrong turn and ended up falling into the orbit of a sinister trap. 

Would this jeopardize everything they’d done?

Yuuri glanced over at the closed door periodically over the hours easing into the night.

Viktor never left his office.

***

Yuuri woke the next day to a strange beeping sound followed by the sandy grind of mechanical motors. He glanced over the edge of his bed and squinted at something rolling around on the floor. When he put his glasses on, the object came into view and rolled toward him. It was an upside-down trash bin with an iPad taped on top, rolling around on top of an RC car.

Perplexed, he reached down to touch it, but it gleefully rolled backward out of reach and made its beep sound again. Yuuri pulled his hand back and it whirled toward him. He wrinkled his brows and examined the funny contraption.

The little emoji face on the iPad displayed a thinking emoji as it beeped again.

Oh, that was unexpected. Yuuri’s eyes widened in surprise. 

The little robot changed its screen to also have a surprised face.

He tried another, a smile this time. The screen smiled back. He stuck his tongue out. The screen did the same with an emoji and emitted a series of petulant beeps. Yuuri couldn’t help but laugh.

“Do you like it?”

Yuuri turned his head to see Viktor leaning against his doorway with a toy remote controller in his hands. He pressed on one of the levers and the trash bin rattled back to settle by his feet.

“What is it?”

“It’s a prototype robot. What do you think?”

“It’s...cute. I like it.”

“I thought about what you said yesterday. And I’m sorry for yelling at you. That isn’t who I am or want to be. It’s just…”

“It’s ok, Vitya. I shouldn’t have said those things. It wasn’t my place.”

“No, you should have. Because you are right. I thought about what you said about motion and life and spontaneity, and it’s true. Those are the things that make us alive, so thank you for reminding me. I had this idea to build a robot companion that could keep mama company. It just copies your facial expressions right now, and I still need to make a real self-driving version--”

“You did this all last night?!”

“I couldn’t sleep. And I mean, it is literally an iPad on a bin.”

Yuuri laughed, “You really can do anything.”

The little robot also mimicked a laugh, buzzing as it displayed a smiling emoji. It unexpectedly charmed the restless animal in Yuuri’s chest. Such a simple thing, but such a profound feeling.

Viktor looked down at the small machine and smiled. “What do you think we should name it, Yuuri?”

He contemplated the question for a long moment. A name that could capture the significance of this moment, the feeling in his veins of sudden, rushing fondness. There were so many important things in his memory, but one stood out as having inspired him more than anything else. The thing that helped him connect to Viktor, where they spoke to each other without speaking at all.

“Name it Aria.”


	9. Chapter 9

Skating, Age 23-24.

“Why record this if it wasn’t really real?”

Viktor handed him the array and replied, “Because it is important to who you are today. It happened to you. Is this what would maybe make you change your mind? Do you not want to record anymore?”

“Don’t be silly,” he shot back with a dismissive wave.

As Yuuri settled into the recliner and they began recording, the skating season flooded back with vivid clarity. Viktor, Hatsetsu, Grand Prix Final circuit. His mind circled all the moments he held dear. This was the world he wanted, where he was special.

Beijing was striking to visit again. He could feel his nerves raw and anxious as if it had only been yesterday. The sheen of their competitor badges harsh against arena lighting. The parking garage, his heart breaking. His feet threatened to give out in the parking garage as they spoke. What if Viktor actually resigned and left? 

Falling, he remembered the sensation of falling on a jump, the disappointment and ache of hitting the ice hard. Just as he could feel what was about to happen, he always knew right at takeoff if the axis was off but just enough. Bruises healed but losing Viktor was forever. He couldn’t go on the ice like that, shaky and brittle like capillary glass. The memory began to collapse into itself, the very air compressing around and into his lungs. Vertigo was whiting out his ability to string together thoughts. He couldn’t breathe. 

“Yuuri!”

He stood on the precipice of possibility.

“Yuuri! Stop!”

Someone was touching his face, pulling the blindfold and net of electrodes away. 

“Breathe, Yuuri.”

He couldn’t figure out how. Instead, he grasped desperately onto whatever was before him. Yuuri dug his hands into worn fabric, hanging on with inexplicable force like gravity. If he let go, he was afraid he’d be adrift forever.

“Don’t leave me, Viktor,” he sobbed out as hot tears began to fall.

“Shh,” Viktor reassured, “Whatever you remembered gave you a panic attack. Don’t think about it anymore. Just breathe.” He enveloped the shaking young man in his arms.

“Please don’t leave.”

The anguish of those words stirred a reaction that scorched like he was brittle ice thrown into scalding water. He didn’t know how to respond other than a shaky, “I’m here.”

Yuuri clung to him for ages. 

***

Viktor left the apartment in a hurry. Once Yuuri had gotten over his embarrassment, a mist of tension settled between them. It deeply unsettled him. He left to smoke and couldn’t bring himself to go back upstairs again, the craving of distance too strong.

He sent a text to Yuuri.

__

> _I am going out for a walk. I can only think while walking. It is a Russian thing ;)_

Yuuri did not write back anything except a thumbs-up emoji. Not wanting to read into it one way or another, Viktor simply kept walking. He could still feel the undeniable longing of Yuuri’s grasp tugging at him like tendrils of wall-climbing ivy. Seeded long ago, it had climbed and attached so slowly it escaped his notice altogether. But he now recognized its invasive presence. Turning a detached clinical eye, he studied himself, the way his heart stubbornly refused to calm down. He knew this feeling, this weakness, intimately well.

_Don’t leave me, Viktor…_

He didn’t mean you, idiot. He meant that mirrored reflection he wanted.

Throwing a burnt cigarette into a nearby dumpster, he took a left turn onto cobblestone streets. It’d been years since he’d walked through this area. A sick feeling from the chain-smoking dwelled in his stomach, and he picked up his pace to try to walk it off. He still couldn’t think.

With a mind of their own, his feet took him to a bar he used to frequent long ago. Before he knew it, one hour turned into many. One drink turned into rounds. He’d made some new friends whose names he hadn’t bothered to ask. They laughed at his jokes and entertained him with ones of their own. Their liveliness was infectious. He completely forgot that he wanted to think.

Time flowed backward, regressing past sunrise sunset, irregular skips to night.

That last shot of vodka had likely been one too many, but who was he to say no to a free drink from a handsome stranger. It filled up his consciousness with something other than Yuuri. Viktor’s head was spinning a bit as he stumbled out of the elevator, one hand still up the shirt of some man he’d just picked up at the bar. The man chuckled as Viktor pulled him along, uncoordinated but filled with eager intention.

He fumbled around in his pocket for his keys while suppressing a moan in response to the sloppy kisses his guest was bestowing on his neck from behind. After several distracted tries, he finally got the key in the lock. However, before he could turn it, the other man flipped him around and caught his mouth with an urgent kiss. A thrill of desire ran through Viktor, and he responded with a dart of his tongue just as wanting and shameless. He ran a hand through the man’s short, dark hair and pulled him closer.

A stumble and they hit the door frame with a dull thud. Viktor didn’t mind the edge digging into his shoulder; he was too busy grinding his hips forward and relishing the revelation of being wanted to excess. Sex was clearly the agreement here; no uncertainties of what he should and could say. All he wanted tonight was to occupy his mind with anything but the complexity of feelings.

At this rate, they were never going to make it past the hallway. “There’s a bed inside, you know,” he finally broke away and said, words slurred and breathless. 

The dark-haired man pulled back and smiled. His eyes were dark and full of lust as he muttered back, “Sorry, I promise I’m not usually like this.” He paused for a minute to run his fingers along the lines of Viktor’s hips before adding, “You’re just too stunning.”

That’s what they all say. Viktor laughed as he turned around to face the door; it was a hollow and humorless sound. He rotated the key and opened the door in one single motion. They both stumbled forward into the foyer, spilling into the darkroom. The man bumped into the credenza by the door and caused a series of jingling as the metallic door handles swung into the doors. 

“Shhhh! Please--please be quiet, I have a house guest,” Viktor said, leaning close to the man’s ear. He pressed a seductive kiss right under the lobe as if to encourage him to obey. Taking his guest by the hand, Viktor began to pull them toward his bedroom. A few steps in, he stopped and turned.

“Take your shoes off,” he insisted as he kicked off his own with a poorly controlled swing of each leg. Always so forgetful, he berated himself. It would be very rude to Yuuri to wear shoes in the house just because he was drunk. The man furrowed his brow in confusion but stepped out of his loafers all the same. Couldn’t they just do this in the bedroom a few steps away?

Viktor rewarded his obedience with arms wrapping around his neck and a heady kiss. When they broke for air, he murmured, “Thank you…” What was his name again? It was something harsh and blunt on the tongue, something that slipped through his foggy mind like a grain of sand on a beach. _Not like Yuuri_ , his traitorous mind supplied. “Where were we?” he muttered, more to stop his own thoughts than to the other man.

“Headed to this bed you allegedly have,” the nameless man replied, hands grasping at him in encouragement.

“Ah, the mythical bed.”

Taking control, Viktor pushed the man toward his room, almost causing both of them to fall with his haste and lack of balance. The bedroom felt warm as they entered, blanketed in a cushion of softness it normally lacked. It was just the alcohol, but he enjoyed it. He kicked the door closed behind him. Falling on the bed, he allowed the man to climb on top and straddle him. The sensation of being caged by the weight of someone else was reassuring and familiar. Warm hands began to undo the buttons of his shirt, and he closed his eyes with a contented sigh.

The man leaned down for a kiss when he undid the last button. Viktor replied with a vicious heat that upped the pace of their movements to a flurry of hands, lips, touch, friction.

“You’re stunning, Viktor.”

He kept his eyes closed. How could he have taken home an idiot who only knew one word, his mind complained, but he bit his lips and instead made a noise of agreement.

“I can’t believe Sergei Srkov let go of something as beautiful as you. But I’m glad, because--”

Blue eyes flew wide open.

“What did you just say?” Viktor hissed, suddenly recoiling. The sound of _that name_ was a storm. His heart flipped in his chest painfully, driving a wave of chill down through him. It paralyzed his every limb and caused his skin to sting with cold awareness. 

“Come on, I know who you are. Don’t pretend you’re not...”

Nausea built in his stomach at every syllable.

“Stop talking.” The words were sharp and cutting.

The stranger shrugged and replied, “Whatever. Don’t pretend to be so upset. Must be nice to be rich and famous…”

Before the man could finish repeating his words, Viktor shoved him off with enough force that the poor stranger fell off the bed and hit the floor with a loud thunk. His hands trembled as he pushed himself upright.

“What the fuck, man.”

“Get out of my house,” Viktor spat out, punctuating every word as he sat motionless on the bed. A flash of anger told the man to move as fast as he could.

Rustling filled the air as the man picked himself up and staggered to his feet. “Damn, you are crazy.”

“I said get out!” Viktor raised his voice. 

The man scrambled to leave, causing a series of loud noises on his way out. Viktor didn’t get up to see what was going on, for his heart was simply pounding too hard. His blood pressure had raced from normal to sky-high in a matter of minutes. It seemed he would collapse if he tried to stand at all. After the second series of sounds, a slam of the front door told him that the nameless man was finally gone.

He let out a shaky breath and buried his face in both hands. He was better than this, he told himself. Wasn't time supposed to heal all? And it had been years already; years that he was wiser for living. He could have anyone; he was worth anyone he wanted. He was better than this, he repeated to himself again and again. 

But that was a lie. It’d taken so long to reset his life, to pretend he was fine. Yet just one word, a measly mention, and it was all back with the same relentless force. Like it was yesterday, he was overcome with the shame and loneliness that was the defining failure of his life. The weightless cut of an old wound whose edges never quite knit together. Failure as a founder, failure as a lover, failure as a person.

Reaching into his pocket with a trembling hand, he took out his pen and started to smoke. Yuuri would forgive him for this one time in the house. The vapor was just not satisfying in the way that the arid fume and scent of cigarettes were. He itched to dig out the pack of real cigarettes from his jacket. Staring into the darkness, Viktor blew out a long stream of twisting vapor. Lost in his mind, he barely noticed the movement within the apartment until a lamp clicked and flooded his doorway in dull yellow light.

“Vitya?” Yuuri tentatively called as he inched out of the guest bedroom with his walker. Damn the idiot for making so much noise. The commotion must have woken him.

“Go back to sleep, Yuuri,” he replied, surprised by how raw and shaky his own voice sounded.

“Is everything ok? I thought I heard someone.” 

Viktor could hear the soft scrapes of the walker moving toward him. He really should help Yuuri, but he couldn’t will his body to move. He took another inhale of his vape to try and calm the asynchronous racing of his mind and his heart. When Yuuri made it to his doorway much faster than he anticipated, Viktor swore under his breath and started to button his shirt back up. 

He tried to hide the distress, but it must have been written plain and clear in his eyes. Yuuri immediately asked, “Are you ok?”

“Fine,” Viktor supplied too quickly, unable to meet his eyes. He turned off the vape as a courtesy and hoped the smell didn’t bother Yuuri too much. “It’s 2 am, Yuuri, go back to bed.”

Yuuri stubbornly continued to inch forward with his unsteady steps. Once he made it to the bed, he turned and fell backward to sit beside Viktor. Squeezing his eyes shut, Viktor tried to force a stiff smile. “It’s fine. Sorry to wake you, Yuuri.”

“I can tell you’re not fine,” Yuuri said gently. The words seem to shake something in Viktor, blurring the dim cast of light on Yuuri’s soft features. He felt his eyes grow hot and watery as he swallowed hard and tried to hold it back. Not daring to blink for fear of the tears falling, he stared straight forward into Yuuri’s concerned dark eyes.

“It’s nothing, really,” he lied through his teeth.

Giving a thoughtful twist of his lips, Yuuri fidgeted with the sleeves of his flannel pajamas, grabbing and twisting the hems with each hand. It was a cute, nervous habit Viktor had begun to notice when there was something particularly daring he was trying to work up the courage to say.

“It’s ok, you know, it’s ok to cry. I do it all the time,” he finally stammered out.

The nervous manner of his advice was endearing. Viktor almost laughed but suppressed the urge for fear that Yuuri would take it the wrong way. Instead, he looked down and gave a weak smile. “It is a personal policy that I never cry. It doesn’t accomplish anything.” 

A coy and deflecting response again. Viktor almost felt ashamed that he couldn’t face his weakness in a moment like this. It was as though the door were open but he just couldn’t manage to step through. Wrapped up in hesitation, he didn’t expect it at all when Yuuri suddenly enveloped him in outstretched arms. He instinctively leaned into the embrace and rested his head against Yuuri’s shoulder, a reflection of them earlier in the day.

“I know you’re upset. I don’t know what it is and you don’t have to tell me...but sometimes it’s good to just sit and be upset. You don’t need to always accomplish things. It’s ok to just feel bad,” Yuuri murmured into his ear.

It settled his erratic heart.

“Thank you,” he whispered back after a moment. 

He was thankful not for the excuse to remain silent, but for the message beneath the words: that everything was alright even if he never said a word. Viktor rested his head against Yuuri’s and breathed deeply in relief.

They sat in embrace until Yuuri’s hips complained with a dull ache from having to hold such a strange angle. They laid down on the bed to take the pressure off but stayed facing one another.

“I was in love once,” Viktor confessed after a long stretch of dark silence.

“Vitya, I said you don’t have to--”

He interrupted, “It’s alright. I feel that I want to tell you.” Yuuri closed his mouth and looked into his eyes with intent and an unreadable expression.

“You probably know already, it is a famous tabloid story,” he slowed as he prepared himself, not knowing how to continue, “He was my cofounder, my best friend. He was my world. This was before everything. You know, when all we had were ideas and dreams and the ignorance to not be scared. It was perfect, just us and our hands on keyboards.”

Viktor’s eyes were forlorn as he reminisced about what it was like to be young and infatuated. “When you’re in love, you pretend.” His voice broke a bit at this part, “You pretend to be a better version of yourself. You pretend to like things more than you do, just so they will want you. But that doesn’t last. And after time wore on, I couldn’t give all the things he wanted. I couldn’t be a business partner, a friend, a roommate, a confidante, everything another person needs all at once.”

“Vitya…no one can be all those things at once.” Yuuri reached forward and grasped for his hand in reassurance.

“It’s ok, Yuuri. I know what he says about me. That I was his ‘starter model’, like some kind of shitty first apartment you settle for when you’re young and broke. I wasn’t good enough. He didn’t agree with me about where our company should go. We were at an impossible impasse, and so he chose what he loved more,” Viktor continued bitterly, “He quietly negotiated with the board and the c-suite. And one day I got a call. 

“And I just knew; I knew as soon as I heard his voice. He knew too because all he said was ‘It’s been decided’. I should have just made a quiet exit, but no, I had to go give everyone something to gossip about. There’s nothing worse than being young and vengeful with money. Like a fool, I sued everyone I knew, even people who didn’t deserve it. All because I could afford it. I said nasty things I want to but can’t take back. I’d rather feel nothing than be pitiful like that again, so I put away anything that reminded me of that time.”

There was so much he couldn’t say aloud for that would make it too real. Watching his life’s work taken away, too painful to revisit with words. Suddenly a full life was emptied and dismantled. No work, no plan, no friends. In a moment, he’d gone from being surrounded by admirers and meaningful work to just a man alone in a room with a checkbook. He felt physically sick thinking about it and forced himself to push away the image of those words escaping his lips.

_We’ve all outgrown you…_

He had been caught in the lonely isthmus of half-awareness, not understanding the entirety of what surrounded him but knowing enough to be deeply wounded. 

“When I asked him if he ever loved me, he just told me to grow up. You must know, Yuuri, he is the protagonist of this tale. I am the villain, the crazy partner who held him back from greatness. The company grew so quickly after I left. Without me, he became the famous Sergei Srkov, the tech mogul, Russia’s hero. I’m just some footnote in his origin story.”

Yuuri brushed the stray silvery strands from his brow and offered, “I don’t think you’re the villain.”

“He was right. Love is not some enduring, beautiful thing. What we call love is just a script written into our code to serve the directive of safety and stability back when humans only lived to be thirty. It is ancient, and it doesn’t suit the lives we live today. It isn’t real and it doesn’t last. Look what it does to us, what it makes us do to each other.”

For Viktor, it was inevitable to fall prey even if he knew: the human weakness of wanting to look into the sun despite knowing it would blind you. And so he vowed to never look again, even if he could sense the alluring presence. He refused to be like drowned sailors who loved the sea even as they sank into its depths.

With a vehement shake of his head, Yuuri looked deep into his eyes and replied, “No, that’s not true. I’m sorry you met a cruel person. I believe in love, whether it’s Eros or Agape. Love is not from nature like you say. We aren’t born knowing it, we have to learn it. Love is a choice we make to act with grace and not pettiness. You don’t fall ‘in’ or ‘out’ of love, you can only choose to grow into it or turn away. Don’t turn away just because you had one bad teacher.”

Viktor’s chest fluttered at the insistence of Yuuri’s voice. He studied the beautiful way the other’s eyes gleamed. The hints of gold in his iris caught by the yellow cast of incandescent light. It bought him solace to know there were still beautiful things in the world like Yuuri, and they did not diminish even if the biggest of calamities befell him personally.

Here was a man who had every reason to belittle him, whose own tragedy was astronomically more complex, and he was telling Viktor he was sorry. It seemed almost comical in comparison. Viktor had not lost the ability to do the things he loved most; he was not fighting his way back to another world. He could start another company, build another vision. And yet here Yuuri was, generous in a way that left him both envious and in awe.

“It doesn’t change that I’m no good. I am a failure,” he admitted, humbled by the scale of difference between them.

Yuuri shook his head and squeezed his cold hand tightly. “You can’t give in to the bad thoughts. You’re not a failure. How can you be when you managed to bring me back to life?”

The question was bittersweet. Back to a life he did not want, Viktor almost added. He knew better than to spoil good intention and simply gave a wry smile. 

He understood what Yuuri had meant, but it only served to amplify the ticking countdown of days. The sun was setting on their time, the long shadow of the days gone past cast into the limited future ahead.

Three weeks.

***

Morning interrupted Viktor’s sleep with a splitting hangover headache. Squinting against the light streaming through his window, he cursed himself for choosing aesthetic rather than functional curtains. His gaze turned behind him, and he almost jumped. Yuuri was fast asleep on top of the covers, pressed up against his back with an arm wrapped around his waist.

He looked at himself, still wearing last night’s clothes, and began to remember bits and pieces. The nameless man, his rage and despair. And Yuuri, poor Yuuri, rudely woken up and forced to stay up and play agony aunt.

Getting up, he carefully extricated himself and thought about what to do. For one thing, he’d need to do the laundry after tainting his bed with the grime of outside clothes. He should let Yuuri sleep though; he was likely exhausted from staying up so late. Yuuri probably would also prefer his own bed. And sleeping under the covers like a normal person, his mind supplied. Gently, Viktor slid his arms under Yuuri’s shoulder and knees and lifted him off the bed. Yuuri was still so light and frail.

Viktor carried him back to his room and set him in the bed, careful to drape the blanket over him so he wouldn’t be cold. Yuuri murmured something unintelligible and grasped at Viktor but did not wake. Something was distressing him. When he settled down, Viktor turned from the bed and moved to leave.

“Vitya,” Yuuri muttered in his sleep, clearly this time. 

His stomach twisted at the sound of his name.

_You’re not Viktor. You look like him, but you’re not like him at all._

Viktor padded back to the bed and leaned down over Yuuri to place a soft kiss on his forehead. Yuuri’s expression relaxed at the gesture, and he pressed his face into the pillow with slightly parted lips.

“Do you really still want to go back? It’s ok to change your mind,” he whispered into Yuuri’s ear.

Yuuri stirred slightly and returned a sleepy murmur, “Yes.”

Viktor sighed. This was as truthful as it would get, an answer from half-consciousness. Lingering on his way out, he looked back at the sleeping figure. The swimming sensation in his stomach worsened. No, he told himself, it was just the hangover and the wave of drunken irrationality last night. He knew this feeling and what it meant. But he also knew better than to relent to the ancient programming telling him to just, ever so easily, indulge. He had to be strong.

Rivers of emotion carved through his heart, but they were long ago wrung dry by the thirst of loneliness. He knew where this would go. Beautiful things wilted into dust just as even the brightest of summers always gave way to winter’s deadland.

It was always the same.

With a stricken wince, he turned away.


	10. Chapter 10

The days cycled from warm to burning without warning like an air conditioner on the fritz. Summer heat blanketed the city in rushes and ebbs. Some days the sun was just comfortable, and Yuuri couldn’t stand to be inside. Other days, all he wanted to do was stay in bed and wait for the humidity and storms to pass. Viktor was...different. He seemed to always prefer sitting at his computer, only leaving to take Makkachin out when she clawed at his leg. Sometimes Yuuri wondered if Viktor went days without really noticing anything that wasn’t on his screen.

“Can I take Makkachin out today?” he asked tentatively as he watched the dog start to tug on Viktor’s pants with her paw.

“Did you say something?” Viktor spun around from his monitors and took out his headphones.

Yuuri gestured to the dog with the cane that he’d graduated to using and repeated, “Can I take her on her walk?” The dog very enthusiastically turned her attention to Yuuri and started to drag her paws on his leg instead. 

“Oh, but…” Viktor started but did not finish.

Sensing his hesitation, Yuuri explained, “The physical therapist says I should push myself to walk longer distances. I thought it may be good to take her out.”

“Oh yes, of course, Yuuri! Let me go get the leash.”

A wave of relief washed over Yuuri. He let out a breath he didn’t even realize he had been holding. But of course, Viktor would say yes. Why would he say no? It’s just walking his dog. That he loves beyond anything in the world, his mind supplied. It’s not like you actually care about physical therapy, you’re a dead man.

Leaning on the cane with each step, he made his way to the door to wait. Every stride was still slow and drawn out with a slight tremble as he shifted his weight to the next stride. Just as with learning a skating element, he still had to work on the entry and exit. Once he was at the door, he sat down on the bench to put on his shoes. Another element he could get better at. His legs didn’t seem to bend the right ways to make it easy.

“Here, I got it,” Viktor said as he took the sneaker from his hand and dropped to his knees. Makkachin was already on her leash, dashing around and giddy with anticipation.

Yuuri sheepishly extended his foot forward and let Viktor help him slide it into the shoe. He felt oddly like Cinderella, savoring the touch of the prince as he held a glass slipper. It wasn’t the first time Viktor had done this for him, but he felt himself relishing the gesture more than usual, perhaps because he knew it was coming to an end. 

One week. 

Their time was almost over.

He joked, “You should make me do these things myself. I may just get in a habit and always need you to tie my shoes.”

Viktor flashed him a smile and returned with exaggerated eagerness, “You think so? Have you changed your mind and want to stay here forever?”

The reply caught him off guard, and Yuuri blushed from the implication. He pushed Viktor’s arm with his other foot as if to kick him, a smile tracing his lips. “Quit making fun of me, Vitya.”

“I’m hurt, you never take me seriously,” Viktor mock-complained as he slipped Yuuri’s second foot into a shoe and tied the laces. Not too tight, just right; he knew Yuuri so well. When he finished, he stood and stepped into his boat shoes with ease. Makkachin stood at the door patiently waiting but couldn’t help getting up and excitedly wagging her tail when she heard Viktor pick up his keys from the bowl on the credenza.

“Wait, you’re coming too?” Yuuri gave a surprised look.

Viktor extended a hand to help Yuuri up from the bench. “Of course. How else will I prevent you from running away with my dog?”

“Right, because you’ve seen me do a lot of running.”

They both laughed at the ridiculousness of the suggestion until Yuuri had to sit back down from his sides hurting. It was a good ten minutes before they’d collected themselves enough to get out the door. 

***

The weather was generous today, warm but without the nauseating humidity that often plagued the city. Yuuri was able to walk five city blocks with Viktor to the cafe nearby for a coffee. It was furthest he’d gone on his own two feet without having to break and sit, he noted with pride.

They sat outside and enjoyed their afternoon espresso with Makkachin baking like a loaf in the warmth. Viktor drew on a napkin his idea for the prototype design for Aria, a round tub on wheels with a rounded dome display for a face.

Yuuri joked it still looked like a trash can. “But a cute trash can,” he tagged on when Viktor gave him an exaggerated look of disappointment.

They brainstormed alternative designs long after they’d finished their drinks. And when Viktor gave him a hand to help him up, Yuuri mourned the end of their afternoon together. He also mourned that he would not be around long enough to see Aria become real. A twinge in his heart emanated whenever he counted down the days. Soon he will be able to count them down on just one hand. But it couldn’t be helped, he’d made up his mind.

The sky was darkening steadily as they began to exit, signaling summer showers were on the horizon.

Walking back was decidedly harder than walking there, much harder than he’d anticipated. Pride prevented him from admitting to himself that he probably should have chosen to use the walker and not the cane. Yuuri’s legs felt heavy, stiff, and uncooperative, but he was determined. He wanted to be able to tell his therapist he’d done it.

Around halfway home was when he felt the first raindrop. It danced on his cheek with the light warmth of the sun. They continued without acknowledging it.

Sprinkles turned to a drizzle quickly before rushing into true rain. They stopped under the awning of a shop to hide from the rain, shielding their eyes from the falling drops.

“Hmm, should I call a car?” Viktor asked as he glanced up to the sky. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. We are only three blocks away,” Yuuri insisted.

“I knew I should have made you take the walker instead of the cane.” 

Before Yuuri could respond, the rain accelerated into a true downpour, pattering to the ground in rhythmic splashes. Viktor shielded his eyes and looked up at the graying sky. “Yuuri, I’m going to get a car. You shouldn’t be standing for this long.”

“No, I can wait. It’ll pass quickly,” Yuuri stubbornly replied, even as his legs protested with a dull ache. He wasn’t so sure he should be standing this long either.

Viktor took out his phone and studied the radar map. There seemed to be a slight break coming up, but it was short, maybe only a few minutes. Far too short for Yuuri’s snail pace anyway. The puddles forming in the sidewalk were also going to be a hazard for unsteady feet. He hesitated, casting his eyes between Yuuri and the rain. 

“It’s starting to let up, but it will be back in ten minutes. I will carry you,” Viktor declared as he put his phone away. 

Yuuri made a strangled noise in response. “What?” 

“Yes, come on. I will carry you.” He pointed to his back and gestured for Yuuri to climb on. 

“No, I can’t, I…” Yuuri stammered, suddenly flustered.

Viktor turned and gave him a coy smile. “You don’t want to get a car. You can’t wait here that long, and you can’t walk fast enough to get home before the rain picks up again. I think this is your only option.” Makkachin shook the water out of her fur in a dramatic addition, much to Viktor’s delight.

Letting out an exasperated noise, Yuuri griped, “This is so embarrassing.”

“I promise to never tell anyone,” Viktor whispered with a wink.

The rain was breaking momentarily. Now or never.

“Fine.”

Gleefully, Viktor kneeled and let Yuuri drape himself over his shoulders. He took Yuuri’s arms and encouraged him to wrap them tightly. 

“Ready? You have a good grip on Makka’s leash?” he asked as he wrapped his hands around Yuuri’s thighs. 

When he heard an embarrassed “yes” murmured into his ear, he straightened and lifted Yuuri in a piggyback carry. As he began to walk, Yuuri tightened his arms around his shoulders.

“Don’t worry, I won’t drop you, yet,” Viktor joked as they crossed a small street.

Yuuri did not answer. Instead, he leaned in and rested his face against Viktor, allowing himself the indulgence of breathing in the scent of salt and tobacco in crisp rain. It was odd to be so close to a person again. Someone different, someone the same. 

(don’t let me go) 

He could almost hear the plea from his Viktor.

The feel of such proximity was intoxicating, so much that Yuuri was disappointed when they arrived at the apartment building minutes later. He found himself wishing they had been just a few more blocks away. As Viktor lowered himself to allow Yuuri to stand once more, their touch lingered past what it took for Yuuri to find his footing.

He kept a hand on Viktor’s arm despite knowing he didn’t need it.

***

After they dried themselves off and changed into dry clothes, Yuuri insisted on making some hot tea to thank Viktor for getting them home.

As he strained genmaicha, he felt a particularly odd line of thought cross his mind.

Being close to this Viktor felt different, new, untamed. Why? He began to wonder if the memories in his mind were real--how real could they be? How did a program know to manufacture what being close to another person he’d never been with felt like?

Viktor helped him carry the tea to the couch. Makkachin was already busy taking a nap by the window after such an eventful outing. The remaining mist of water in her fur gleamed against the yellow, incandescent light.

As they sipped their tea, Yuuri abruptly asked, “Do you think that experiences in a simulation are the same as real ones?”

Taken by surprise, Viktor choked a little on his tea. 

“I didn’t mean,” Yuuri grimaced and began to apologize profusely. The other man merely laughed, waving his hand to say he was alright. 

“Such a serious question,” he teased.

Yuuri blushed and shrunk into himself, feeling silly at having asked it. “Sorry, it’s stupid. Just pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“No,” Viktor reassured him, “It’s a good question, Yuuri. I don’t know. Anything, in particular, you are wondering about?”

Holding his mug with both hands, Yuuri stared into the tea and stumbled over how to ask. “I wonder about,” he began tentatively, “I don’t understand how firsts work. How can you imagine the first time you do something?”

“What do you mean?”

Feeling blood starting to rush to his face, he stopped to collect himself a bit. He needed something less personal as an example. “Like, um...eating a food for the first time. If you’ve never tasted it, how can you simulate it as an experience?” Inside, he berated himself for always going to food when he could not think of anything clever. It was hardly related to that.

Viktor considered the question with a finger to his lips. “If you know what it is made of, you make a guess, I suppose.”

“But what if it tastes completely different than the real thing?”

A moment of silence. A confused look.

“Ah, Yuuri, why didn’t you just say so,” Viktor finally replied, “Is there something you ate that you’d like to try again?”

“Oh! No!” Yuuri shook his head with wide eyes, “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” An interested tilt of the head toward him.

Fidgeting with his mug, Yuuri tried again. How to explain without saying what was really on his mind? It was an elusive thread he tried to capture to weave around his intention.

“I guess I want to know if I did something for the first time...in there. How do I...how do I know that it is what that experience is really like? What if what I imagined is completely unrealistic? What if it’s wrong?” he managed to say in starts and stops.

Quiet contemplation passed between them, settling like a blanket.

“I don’t think it matters if you have nothing to compare it to.” An odd non-answer. “If it is the only experience you know, it isn’t less or more valid than anything else.”

“But it does matter,” Yuuri interjected with audible frustration lacing his words, “It matters to me. I hate knowing that these memories I have, these expectations, could be completely unrealistic. And that I’ll go on in there forever not knowing the real thing.”

Viktor searched his face for more clues. The sharp blue of his gaze was probing, such that Yuuri had to look away, focusing back down at his tea. 

“Which memories are you afraid for?”

Yuuri bit his lip and confessed with a slight bitterness, “A beautiful song written for me. The feeling of landing a quad flip. The first time I won a medal at the Grand Prix Final...”

“Those are just your emotional responses. They would be the same if you did those things in real life.”

He continued, ignoring Viktor’s interruption. The words were a flood, pouring from his lips over a broken dam. Dark eyes stayed focused on his mug for he was afraid of the response he’d see. “The feeling of someone’s hands. The first time I... The first time…”

Just say it.

“A first kiss.”

Viktor stilled, surprise showing on his face.

“Yuuri--”

Yuuri flicked his eyes up and immediately looked away. The stunned expression in those familiar blue eyes was too much to see. “Forget I said anything,” he quickly rushed out before reaching for his cane to get up.

This was a stupid idea anyway.

“No. It’s important to you.”

A hand grasped his wrist firmly, urging him to stay. Yuuri sank back into the couch and put his cup and cane down. The brittle insecurity and sadness was written in the hunch of his spine, whispered in the lines of his face. Normally, he’d be mortified but today he’d lost the will to shield his emotions.

“Let’s find out.”

He turned sharply. “Wh-what?”

“If you want to know if it was realistic, then let’s find out.”

Yuuri’s breath caught as his heart began to thump with increasing frequency. The implication hit him like a bullet. 

“You don’t have to…”

Viktor pulled him close with a hand behind his ear and leaned in with a tilt of his head. Yuuri’s eyes fluttered closed on instinct. A sharp jolt ran down his spine the moment their lips brushed. He could feel every contact all at once: the gentle touch of Viktor’s thumb along his jaw, the texture of his lips, the waking of desire deep inside himself.

Reaching his arms around Viktor, Yuuri pulled him deeper into the kiss. It was all he wanted, all he could do. Taking it all in, he encouraged, sought, coaxed, ran headlong with desperation. And Viktor answered with lips, tongue, and a sigh that told him to continue. Yuuri couldn’t contain it into a linear memory, the feeling of heat and want and breath ran in circular spirals.

He wanted more, and more, infinitely more.

When they pulled apart, gasping for air, Viktor smiled and murmured in the shell of his ear, “So, is it different than you imagined?”

“Yes.”

That was all he could say. It’s far better.

This kiss was more physical than what he’d conjured in the machine. The fierce storm of feeling throbbed within and without, saturating his insides and the air around them until he was lost in delirium. He would take this and keep it forever, one of precious few memorable passions, replicating again and again in his mind. It was a memory he’d reach for in every kiss.

Viktor’s eyes suggested he’d felt it too, darkened with desire and fixated on only Yuuri.

There was some further in his expression though. More than just the raw want that he let Yuuri see. There was something half-hidden, a secret knowing echo of more. It betrayed itself in the lines around Viktor’s eyes, the hint of conflict in his brow. He waited for Viktor to say something but only received silence.

Yuuri thought he saw an admission, but he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps he’d imagined it, confusing memory and reality. It didn’t matter either way. 

Their time was up anyway.


	11. Chapter 11

“Yuuri, wake up!”

Loud clapping jerked him from blissful sleep.

“It’s your last day! Don’t sleep through it!”

Yuuri groaned and covered his head with the blanket. It wasn’t even that bright out. Too early.

“Yuuri! I have an entire day planned. Come on!”

“Five more minutes,” he grumbled, sinking deeper into the mattress.

“I refuse to go leave until you get up!”

The bed began to shake. Viktor had placed his hands down by Yuuri’s head and was bouncing up and down, shaking the entire bed like an excited toddler on a trampoline.

Yuuri made an exasperated noise and finally poked his head out. He blinked away sleep and squinted as he yawned. Viktor was surrounded by a giant blob of something very dark. Reaching for glasses, he pushed himself up and rubbed his eyes. Once he had the glasses on, the room came into sharp relief. Viktor grinned at him with almost scary excitement. He was surrounded by a floating cloud of black balloons.

“Happy death day, Yuuri!”

“Deathday?!”

Viktor tied the bunch of balloons onto the desk leg and babbled onward, “You don’t get to choose how the day of your birth goes. But you can choose how the day of your death goes! And we have a wonderful day ahead!” He began to rattle off all the things they would do, beginning with breakfast. 

“We will walk along the Neva, enjoy the Summer Garden. We will have lunch at the most magnificent riverside cafe. And we must go shopping for a fashionable outfit and a haircut so you can look good for your death day portrait. We’ll end with dinner on the roof at Terrassa.”

Deathday portrait?! The impropriety of such a concept made him burst out laughing. In between laughs, he retorted, “This is so morbid.”

Sitting down on the bed dramatically, Viktor feigned disappointment. “But jokes are our only tool for defeating sadness. Are you saying you don’t like my plans?”

“No! Of course, I like them,” Yuuri smiled, still half laughing at the ridiculous black balloons, “But can I request to change something?”

“Only if it is not the portrait. We must have a portrait.”

Yuuri laughed again and shook his head. “It’s just dinner. I don’t want to go to a fancy restaurant. Thank you for wanting to treat me, but I...I want to make you dinner.”

_I want to eat Katsudon with you._

***

The Neva river gleamed in all of its summer glory, dark and deep. They settled down on a patch of grass after lunch and a haircut. The “most magnificent cafe” turned out to be a small secluded establishment with a huge sign that said “go fuck yourself” outside. A very Russian thing to do, Viktor assured.

They lazily burned time relaxing.

Yuuri rubbed the back of his much shorter hair and remarked, “I still think I look ridiculous. It’s too trendy for me.” The very fashionable hairdresser had taken one look at him and simply started cursing and sighing heavily, as though Yuuri’s hair was the biggest disaster ever seen. He couldn’t catch any of the words, but it seemed to be something about “no layers” and “crooked”.

“Of course not,” Viktor insisted as he caught Yuuri’s hand and stopped him from messing it up. He straightened Yuuri’s new chambray shirt and leaned back to get a good look before declaring, “Very handsome.”

Noticing someone faraway, Viktor waved to a tall man with close-cropped brown hair by the tree line. The man carried a black duffle and had a large camera in his hands. He looked around the park but did not see them. Viktor cupped his hands and shouted, “Gosha!”

The man jerked his head in their direction and finally spotted Viktor waving wildly. He held a hand up to his brow and squinted to make sure it was really them before making his way over. As he came closer, Yuuri was surprised to see he knew this person.

“Yuuri, this is Georgi, our photographer for today.”

“Nice to meet you, Yuuri.”

The man sat down, shifted his camera to one hand, and extended the other. Shaking it with a bit of a stunned expression, Yuuri wasn’t quite sure what to say. He could see the traces of the Georgi he’d met in this man. Georgi was statuesque, quiet but with a storm of dramatics in his deep-set eyes. 

“He is a very popular photographer! We are childhood friends,” Viktor explained, “So I can extort a favor out of him.” He slapped the man on the back and earned himself a deadpan eye roll.

“Friend is such a strong word, Vitya.”

Viktor laughed, “Hah! See? He is also a comedian.”

“So what are we doing today?” Georgi wasted no time.

“Ah, it is a very special day for Yuuri. Please take some portraits so we can all remember it! Whatever you think is best. Think like a dashing bachelor portrait for a dating site, not Soviet leadership portrait.”

Holding his camera up, the photographer snapped a few pictures, testing the light. Yuuri smiled awkwardly, not knowing how to hold himself. Georgi motioned for him to look in a certain direction. The click of camera shutter echoed through the air. 

“Relax. Can you just turn your head this way and smile?”

Georgi rummaged through his bag and changed the attachments on his DSLR. While he managed his equipment, Viktor entertained them with silly stories of their youth. The two of them used to live in the same apartment building, running together and terrorizing all their neighbors. They used to stuff their wet winter socks in the building’s laundry machines, throw water out of their window at passersby on the ground, and leave cicada shells on everyone’s window screens. It was a decidedly different childhood compared to Yuuri’s quieter one.

Georgi shook his head and lamented, “It was all him. I was led astray by his bad influence. My parents would threaten to send me to the countryside for hard labor every week because of this guy.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t come up with half the bad ideas,” Viktor shot back, wagging a finger at his attempt to play the good kid. 

He set the camera down and pushed himself to stand. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I have to go back to my car to get a lens.”

Yuuri smiled widely as Viktor laid down in the grass left vacant. He turned back to look closely. Dark sunglasses contrasting sharply against pale hair, it made a beautiful picture. Carefully documenting the lines and details, he stored it in his mind, savoring the freedom of such a moment. He didn’t need any death day portrait, just a tracing of this point in time.

After Georgi returned and snapped a few random photos, of Yuuri, of the river, of random children enjoying the day, the afternoon drew to a close. He walked them back to Viktor’s car. Viktor threw the walker in the trunk while he spoke to Georgi. From the front seat, Yuuri couldn’t hear much except the tail end of dragging Russian syllables.

***

Georgi handed a polaroid photo to Viktor. 

“I like this one. I took it when you weren’t looking.”

Viktor took it and smiled, a slightly bittersweet expression. The photo was of him on the ground, Yuuri looking down at him. The colors were a little bleached from overexposure, but the warmth in Yuuri’s smile was palpable. Georgi was right. It was a nice picture.

“You haven’t said anything to him, have you?”

His eyes darted up. “What?”

Georgi shrugged. “It has been a long time since I’ve seen you with someone. It’s obvious you like him.”

“That,” Viktor trailed off as he ran a nervous hand through his hair. “I can’t. It’s complicated--doesn’t matter what you think you see. He doesn’t want me.”

The other man scoffed, “Don’t be a fool, Vitya. Photos cannot lie. If you like someone, there’s no harm in saying so. Sometimes the other person is just waiting for you. That’s what Anya used to complain about, that she was always waiting...”

Looking down at the image, he felt it cut him to pieces. It wasn’t really for him, only because he reminded Yuuri of the person he truly wanted to be with. How could it not be true? Viktor asked every single day if he would stay, and he never once got an answer close to yes.

Pocketing the photo, Viktor sighed, “It’s not like that. He only has eyes for someone else.”

***

Back in the house, Yuuri tried to mimic the way he remembered his parents cooking, organizing the pots and pans in the exact manner of large ones in the back so he would not have to reach over hot steaming ones. Start the rice first, then fry the pork, then the onions. He could do this with his eyes closed, having watched Toshiya conduct this orchestra countless times.

The smell of it all pulled him home, back to all the times they enjoyed simple meals together as a family. The room came alive with the thick scent of fried pork and dashi.

“Yuuri, do you need help?”

“NO!” he shouted back immediately. Yuuri refused to let Viktor help with dinner. This was his gift alone.

“But Yuuri…” the voice from the living room grumbled back, “You are tormenting us with such divine smells. Makkachin is leaving a pool of drool on my sock.”

“Be patient! Just a few more minutes.” Yuuri tossed back as he cracked an egg into a bowl.

It was getting close to putting it all together. He poured dashi on the onions and began to move the chopped pork cutlet on top. Pouring the egg in with a sprinkle of scallion was the last step. As the ingredients tangled in the pan, he smiled and thought of all the times Katsudon was the capstone of important things in his life.

When he poured the pan’s contents onto a bowl of rice, he called Viktor over to help carry it all to the table.

“Finally!” Viktor let out a dramatic long breath as he excitedly padded over, Makkachin tagging along closely behind.

Once they settled at the table, Yuuri handed him a pair of chopsticks and pressed his hands together.

“Itadakimasu.”

“What does that mean?”

Yuuri gently explained, “It means, let’s eat.”

“Ok!” Viktor pressed his own hands together in mimicry and nodded, “Itadakimasu.” The terrible accent made Yuuri smile.

After taking a bite, Viktor grinned and exclaimed, “Vkusno! What is this?! And why have you kept it from me all this time?! Wow, I feel like my entire life has been wasted not knowing such a tasty thing.” He hung his head and frowned.

Yuuri laughed; he should have expected this.

***

After dinner, Viktor approached Yuuri with a strange bashfulness.

“I have something for you, Yuuri.”

Viktor took out a small box from his pocket and handed it to Yuuri who was seated on the couch. It was an unremarkable brown box and lid. No decorations, no ribbons or wrappings. Yuuri tentatively opened it and stifled a gasp. Inside, sitting on a bed of foam was a gold ring. It was simple with no embellishment.

“It was my father’s,” Viktor explained as he knelt down before him. “He left it on my bedside table the day he went away. I think he knew he wasn’t coming back, and it was his message to me.”

He reached for Yuuri’s left hand and slipped the golden ring on his finger. It sat a little too large and loose on his ring finger.

“I want you to have this. I know you have a ring in your other life that is very important to you. Objects sometimes have extraordinary power to center us. When you go, this can be the last thing you touch and think about. And the very last and first thing you cross the other side with. It will make your transition more seamless.”

Yuuri looked down at his hand and protested, “I can’t accept this. It’s too precious.”

“Don’t be difficult, Yuuri,” he winked, “I really want you to have it.”

Sputtering incoherent protests, Yuuri took the ring off and held it in his palm. The inside gleamed. He held it closer and saw an inscription in Cyrillic inside.

“What does it say?”

Viktor closed Yuuri’s hand around it and answered, “It is hard to translate. Something like nothing good gets away.” 

Inhaling a sharp breath, Yuuri felt his insides twist up. He sensed Viktor wanting to say something more and purposefully let a long pause settle between them. When nothing more came, he slid the ring back onto his finger and murmured a small, “Thank you.”

The ring weighed in his hand and his heart as he went through the motions. It wasn’t dramatic, it wasn’t before a singing choir at a church, it wasn’t a fairytale, but the ring reminded him that none of this was a story he’d written for himself, it was all real. Right then and there, if Viktor asked him to stay, not out of obligation or ethics or as a joke, but stay because he wanted Yuuri in this life, he would say yes.

He waited for Viktor to ask his daily “have you changed your mind?” 

Unfortunately, it did not come today. Maybe he finally decided to give up. No, his mind countered, he just doesn’t want you like that.

They went through the rest of the preparation work bit by bit, all the boring logistics like legal documents and packing Yuuri’s things. He rushed through sweeping his things into boxes to discard, to ship to Mari. Only one task left to do. He slowly walked over to the living room, leaning on the cane for more support than usual, and sat down in the recliner before calling Viktor over.

Tentatively, he pressed a stack of envelopes into Viktor’s hands.

“This one is for Mari.” He took the top one and lovingly ran his fingertips over her name. Shifting the top letter to the bottom, he took the next ones and said, “This one is for my parents. And this one is for my teacher, Minako. I’ve written the addresses but I didn’t know where you kept your stamps. Please mail them for me tomorrow. And this one...”

Unlike the others, the final letter under all those was thin and flimsy. “This one,” he withdrew it from the pile, “is for the authorities. I’ve written that no one assisted me, and I did this all alone. Give this to whoever you call after. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

Nodding, Viktor took the bundle of envelopes and set them aside on the coffee table. 

“No letter for me, Yuuri?” he half-jokingly pouted.

Yuuri grabbed his hand and pulled him back in seriousness. “Of course not. Everything I want you to know, I want to say to you.”

“Yuuri…”

“I don’t know how to thank you. It seems silly to even try,” he sheepishly glanced down at his hand. “I’ve learned so much from you. And even now, all this, I know you don’t believe in what I’m doing, but you’re still doing it for me. So thank you for this time, this life. Thank you for my next life.” 

He hesitated and traced his fingers over the veins on the back of Viktor’s hand. 

“I don’t worry about my reputation. I don’t worry much about my family. They’ll be fine. But I worry about you. I know you don’t agree with me, but Vitya, we aren’t supposed to keep our feelings away. We’re not meant to be alone. It’s not a weakness to love; you don’t have to always be on your own. Please take care of yourself, ok?”

He couldn’t bring himself to say the rest. It was too cruel to tell someone you loved them then immediately leave them to wonder if you’d meant it.

“I will,” Viktor whispered back.

They both look at each other, hesitating over a last moment. Even Makkachin padded over from her bed to rest her head in his lap.

Yuuri finally broke the silence. “I guess it’s time?”

Viktor nodded and handed him the array, the mask, and all the rest. Well-practiced, Yuuri had no trouble putting the usual pieces into place. Feeling a bit useless, Viktor reached out to help put the inhalation mask on without disturbing the recording array leads. His hands were calm and steady as he adjusted the elastic band while Yuuri held the mask over his mouth and nose. Once the mask was sufficiently fitted, he gently tilted Yuuri’s head back to rest on the recliner pillow.

As Yuuri laid back, he turned slightly to look at Viktor who gave him a hesitant but reassuring smile. When he reached for a hand, Viktor obliged and grasped it with exceeding care, brushing his thumb over the joints. An unreadable darkness clouded his eyes, but Yuuri didn’t dare ask so close the moment.

Viktor settled his other hand on the gas canister valve and leaned forward to whisper, “Are you ready?”

Yuuri nodded and closed his eyes, squeezing Viktor’s hand to draw strength for his journey ahead. In his other hand, he thumbed the gold ring on his finger, feeling its smooth curves. Soon, he’d touch the real thing. He could hear the hiss of gas as Viktor turned the tank dial and anesthesia flooded his mask. As he prepared to breathe deeply, a sniff interrupted the continuous hum of the room. His eyes fluttered open at the noise. 

“Shh,” Viktor quieted him, “Just relax, you’ll--” A pained pause. “He’s waiting for you.”

The uncharacteristic crack in his normally steady voice made Yuuri’s breath hitch in his throat. He locked his eyes on Viktor and was surprised to see tears welling in his clear blue eyes. The air in his lungs felt solid as lead, refusing to move.

_As a rule, I never cry._

The table lamp’s harsh yellow light split Viktor’s face into stark patterns of broken light and shadow. It looked like a beautiful painting inviting him to touch. Yuuri disentangled his hand and reached up to stop the tears rolling down those high cheeks.

The gesture only served to cause Viktor to cry harder, a sob escaping his throat. He covered his mouth with a trembling hand and turned away from Yuuri, shaking from a sudden spasm of sobs. The sight cut Yuuri to the core, more than any amount of longing for the perfect life he had in dreams. His chest hurt, perhaps from the toxic gas merging into his blood, but also from the unspeakably fierce strike he felt. 

Precise and painful, it crashed through him with unrelenting tidal force.

He could see the Viktor he raced towards pale like mist compared to the very real mess in front of him now, a mirage wavering and flickering, diminished by its own beauty. 

No. 

He didn’t want the Viktor who smiled without abandon.

He wanted the one who smiled so seldom, but always when Yuuri said something nice.

He wanted to stay. 

Nothing occupied his mind except for the singular desire to stop those falling tears; he couldn’t stand seeing such distress. No other reality mattered. The one he loved was hurting, and it hurt him to watch; he felt so helpless and desperate. But Yuuri remembered, he was the source. He was the beginning and end and it was all in his choice. At that moment, he didn’t care if he couldn’t run, couldn’t skate, he would give it all away with grace; anything to ward away heartache and ink the promise they would never again have to face the world alone.

But the room was subsuming to the numbing force, and he felt it swimming into stranded gray.

“Vitya, I want to live,” he gasped suddenly through the mask.

Viktor jerked his face back toward Yuuri, shocked and panicked.

Makkachin jumped and barked, pawing at the back of the recliner.

“I want to live!” Yuuri repeated, louder, as he began to pull at the mask.

Their hands tangled in hurried desperation to remove the villainous contraption. Throwing it to the side, Yuuri bolted up and threw his arms around Viktor, holding on as tight as he could. He felt lanky arms do the same around him, encasing him in warmth and delight. It felt to Yuuri that time stopped altogether, and he felt infinitely certain this was where he was supposed to be.

What was real, what was a simulation? Love never can tell the difference.

He felt his eyes sting with unshed tears and buried his face into the crook of Viktor’s neck to prevent them from falling. A straining ache filled his cheeks, and it was only moments later that Yuuri realized it was from uncontrollable smiling. Sniffing back his tears, he contemplated how close he’d come to have gotten it all wrong and how lucky he was to still be there now.

“I want to live. I want to live,” he repeated over and over.

Yuuri closed his eyes and breathed in Viktor’s distinct scent. The smell sent a chill of satisfaction radiating down his spine. Frozen in the embrace, they clutched each other until their tears slowly subsided. It rattled his heart to feel wrapped in the familiar care of being wanted to excess. This was so much more than he had experienced before; he felt circling arms pull him to the earth, toward absolution, toward being.

So foolish, he lectured himself. He should have known all along. Not a dream of perfection but the real, tangible thing that powered the shoddy copy he chased. In this world, he had to claw and fight for every inch, every affection, but Yuuri found it a blessing, for the return was all the sharper in contrast. 

To choose life was to choose love over and over again, witness darkness and stand still in the path of grace instead of running by instinct. Together, the storms could be weathered. Finally, he broke the silence and murmured into Viktor’s ear, “Can I ask...”

“Anything.” The response was immediate, sharp, and reflexive almost as though it had been prepared in advance and waiting for any opportunity to escape.

Yuuri bit his lip in a smile and placed a kiss on Viktor’s cheek before pulling back to look into his eyes. He leaned their foreheads together and whispered with eyes closed, “Please take care of me, Vitya. This lifetime, I want you.”

His beloved let out a small, incredulous laugh.

“That sounds like a proposal.”

He couldn’t help but smile.

Sometimes goodbye was not the only way.


	12. Chapter 12

Starting again was anti-climatic. From that night onward, Yuuri reset his time, beginning at year zero again. They sat awake until just red splashed across the sky before the sun rose. He had a new birthday, marked by the day he chose to begin rather than the day he was born.

The days shortened as the year wore on, and Yuuri grew more steady on his feet with each passing turn around the sun. He’d begun to try and skate again, tentative and slowly reteaching his body the basics. He was like a car wrecked and repaired; the parts functioned, carrying him to the places he wanted, but just never operated quite the same. It seemed unlikely that he’d be able to hold a spread eagle or take the impact of landing a hard jump. But even to be on ice was providence, he told himself, the memory of his wheelchair not far behind. At least he was able to skate again.

Gliding across the ice backward with the slightest tilt, he curved around a gaggle of children playing during public skate and plowed a quick stop, noting how foreign and out of control his blades still felt. Swinging a leg, he turned sharply to glide forward on a three turn. His hip didn’t quite cooperate and he skidded through the turn, leaving a spoon in his tracing. Rocking on the toe was still a challenge. It would be a while before he could work his way back to anything complex, but for now, this was enough. When the momentum lapsed and he found himself coming to a still, he caught a glimpse of someone glued to the wall. He smiled with delight and skated over.

“You’ll never learn if you hang on to the wall, Vitya,” he chided.

Viktor shot him a glare and attempted a step forward. Unsteady and awkward, his skates cut the ice like a pair of knives chopping something tough. Yuuri grasped his hand to support him when he slipped and flailed. “Come on. Don’t try to walk, that is impossible,” he offered, “Hold your arms out and push against the back skate. Like a scooter.”

“Why do you insist on humiliating me like this?” Viktor groaned as he tried a few more ungraceful steps.

Yuuri laughed at the sight. Viktor Nikiforov, twiggy and clumsy like a young giraffe. About as far as possible from the legend he’d dreamed up; it seemed ridiculous in hindsight.

“Ok ok,” he finally yielded after a few more struggling steps, “Just stand, loosen your knees and follow me.” He rotated to be directly in front. When Viktor reached his arm out, Yuuri clasped their hands together and applied the slightest pressure to the rocker of his blades to carry them both. His blades cut a neat almond backward and they slid a few paces. 

“See? It’s not so bad. Keep bending your knees and lean forward a bit.”

Viktor rolled his eyes and protested, “Everyone is laughing at me.”

Shaking his head, Yuuri smiled and skated backward slowly around the curved outer edge of the rink, knowing being close to the wall made Viktor feel better. When they picked up a bit of speed, he released his hands and let Viktor glide forward on his own before spinning around.

“You’re Russian. You’re practically born with skates on your feet. Now, copy me. Put your weight on one foot at a time. The blades carry your weight best at the point right under the arch of your feet so push there. It’ll make a noise when you hit the ice,” he explained as he exaggerated his steps to demonstrate. 

Viktor tentatively tried to mimic him and took a tiny step. Small step after small step, Yuuri guided him around the rink, building his experience into wider glides. When Viktor was no longer stopping and going in jittery strides, he settled to the side and took his hand.

“You’re doing great,” he encouraged.

Viktor grinned as he began to find his feet on the ice. “Ah, but nowhere close to my talented Yuuri.”

They made a few circles with hands clasped, Yuuri skating wide slaloms and crossovers to keep them moving when Viktor’s coordination failed. He glanced down at their hands and smiled at the gold rings they now both wore. It was to be a constant reminder of the ephemeral edge of choice. These rings weren’t a perfect pair, having been created by separate jewelers, but they gleamed the same in the reflected light of ice. 

Once they neared the wall again, Viktor pushed hard against his back skate and turned his shoulders to closed the distance between them. He threw an arm around Yuuri and attempted a kiss. The force threw them off balance, and they fell to the ice in a crumpled heap with Yuuri on top. Viktor pushed silvery hair out of his face and laughed.

Yuuri scolded playfully as he pushed himself up, “You did that on purpose.”

“So cruel with accusations,” Viktor sighed with mock distress, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

“Obnoxious.”

When they got to their feet again, Viktor placed a hand on his cheek and leaned down for a real kiss. Yuuri tilted his face upward and brushed their lips together. When he felt a warm tongue darting into his mouth, he blushed with widen eyes and pulled away.

“There are children here!” Yuuri exclaimed, moderately embarrassed by the publicness of his affection.

Glancing around, Viktor shrugged, “Maybe they can learn something.”

“Vitya!” 

***

After arriving at Yu-topia, they slumped onto the couch in Yuur’s room together, exhausted from the afternoon. Yuuri laid down sideways and threw an arm over his face. In a fluid motion, Viktor followed and rested his head down to listen to the rhythmic thump of Yuuri’s heart. Adding to the pile, Makkachin jumped up at the foot end of the couch and wedged herself in the too-small space between their feet.

With a satisfied sigh, Yuuri traced his fingertips up the line of Viktor’s spine, slowing over every ridge. The motion elicited a long escaping breath from Viktor, deflating under his knowing touch. Immense joy filled him as they laid in the room lit only by the escaping sun of dusk. 

“When do we have to go to Tokyo for the pitch?”

Viktor smiled into his chest and replied, “Wednesday. We still have 2 days. I have a good feeling. I think they will make a big order once they see it.”

Nodding, Yuuri hummed in agreement, “I still can’t believe you’re selling Aria already. It feels like you just drove that RC car into my room yesterday.”

Makkachin whined for attention and snuggled closer, stacking herself on Viktor’s hip. The precarious humans wobbled with her wiggling and collapsed into a burst of giggles. Toppling over, the dog pushed Viktor into the cushions and caused Yuuri to half-fall off the couch.

“I’m hungry, let’s make dinner,” Yuuri suggested, trying to swing his upper body back onto the couch.

Pulling him up, Viktor drew him close against his chest in a crushing embrace. “Mmmm...in a bit. Right now I just want you to stay close to me.”

Yuuri smiled to himself at that particular turn of phrase and felt their pulses blending together in unison. The dull ache of wanting something too much sent his mind into a spiraling whirlpool. His immense pleasure at words so simple undressed him, stripped him of the illusion that he could ever stand to be without Viktor. A part of him was fearful of how easily it swept him away, but he loved it, all the same, reveling at the enormity of his own desire.

The need was balanced by all that they had to give still. They had so much to do. Aria was launching in a few Moscow facilities, and they would need to return to Russia soon.

He tilted his head back against Viktor and retorted, “That’s uncharacteristically sentimental for such a grumpy old man.”

“Don’t test me, Yuuri,” his beloved complained, “I’ll take it back.”

Dragging his thumb across his ring, he smiled. Nothing good gets away. It was a symbol of someone, something lost, gone but never forgotten. A reminder that one did not need to be found to be loved. And a promise that love did not diminish with share, only growing with grace into perfect places.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

-FIN-

Notes:

Thanks for reading and following along on this little story! It is not a very long story, but it took me 3 years to write *cries* because I couldn't decide what it was that I really wanted to say. This is like my TED talk, thank you for coming. You thought you were reading fic, but turns out you were attending a lecture! I'm so sorry, I'm just pretentious like that :D

It’s the end of a tough year; I hope this has helped distract at least a little. Have a great new year everyone!

You can find me on [tumblr](https://littorella.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/alli_littorella) if you ever wanna nerd out about love and ethics...or just look at fanart XD that is ok too.

References:

1\. Happiness write white is a quote from [Henry de Montherlant's Don Juan](https://books.google.com/books/about/Don_Juan.html?id=riv1yQEACAAJ). "Le bonheur écrit à l'encre blanche sur des pages blanches."

2\. The tech described is pure fiction, but does draw a lot of inspiration from real machine/human interaction studies and real technologies. Much is informed by [Sherry Turkle's Alone Together](https://books.google.com/books/about/Alone_Together.html?id=hc7SYAPVlXwC). Aria the robot exists in real life; it is named [PARO](http://www.parorobots.com/).

3\. Many plot points and background draw from the lives of real tech founders such as Peter Thiel, Jack Ma, Tony Hsieh (RIP), and of course, Elon Musk.

4\. This story is purposefully gray on ethics of suicide, birth, and life. Many of the ideas are taken from [Sarah Perry's Every Cradle is a Grave](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Every_Cradle_Is_a_Grave/A5LerQEACAAJ?hl=en).

5\. Love and its meditations are taken from [Leo Buscaglia's Love](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Love/WQNPPwAACAAJ?hl=en).

6\. If you're a fan of discussions about purpose, meaning, life, head over to [Krista Tippet's On Being podcast](https://onbeing.org). Ideas in this story pull from various episodes.


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